PREFACE. A WORK of this kind needs no apology. Let it suffice to say, that men of the greatest learning have employed their time usefully in collecting from such remains of antiquity as are here preserved, historical facts, that were no otherwise to be obtained; and for want of which, persons have been frequently connected with actions they had no relation to, events have been misplaced, and the true order of things confounded. The little regard the latter historians of our own nation have paid to these memorials, is perhaps one reason why their labours appear imperfect, and why the authors themselves, for the most part, outlive the reputation of their works. Indeed, it is a tedious, a difficult, and often an impossible task, to have recourse to those marble records that are every where to be found diffused through this great kingdom; but when all that are worthy of notice in so considerable a repository as Westminster Abbey are collected together in one small book, it will be an unpardonable neglect not to make a proper use of it. If it shall appear, upon comparison of these few sheets, that persons who have had the most considerable share in the transactions of the times in which they lived, have been but just named by our historians, while others of less note have been magnified beyond their true merit; that actions have been ascribed A 2 ascribed to one that were performed by another; and that many things are reported in general, which ought to have been attributed to particular persons or families, the utility of the work will then be apparent, and a road pointed out, by which the errors of our historians may be corrected, their defects supplied, and justice done to the memories of many who have eminently distinguished themselves in the service of their country. But not to dwell on this advantage only, when there are others of no small importance resulting from it, strangers who visit Westminster Abbey will find their account in the perusal of this book. The little time they are allowed in surveying the enclosed chapels, may be more usefully employed by means of it, and their pains rewarded by the recollection of things worthy to be remembered ; the unlearned will be enabled by it to converse with the monuments of the dead, with the same pleasure as the learned; and those who have never seen, nor are ever likely to see this stately edifice, may conceive some idea of its form, magnificence, and furniture, by the account here given of it. Add to all these, the contemplation of the things herein recorded, in a religious sense; for, as the great Mr. Addison observes, "when we read the dates of the tombs of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, we cannot help considering that great day, when we shall all of us be cotemporaries, and make our appearance before one awful judge together." WEST WESTMINSTER ABBEY, AND ITS CURIOSITIES. OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE ABBEY. OF the founding of an Abbey on Thorney Island, where that of Westminster now stands, there are so many miraculous stories related by Monkish writers, that the recital of them now would hardly be endured. Even the relations of ancient historians have been questioned by Sir Christopher Wren, who was employed to survey the present edifice, and who, upon the nicest examination, found nothing to countenance the general belief, "that it was erected on the ruins of a Pagan temple." No fragments of Roman workmanship were discovered in any part of the building; many of which must undoubtedly have been intermixed among the materials, if a Roman temple had existed before on the same spot. Nor is the dedication of the first Abbey less involved in mystery than the founding of it. The legend says, that Sebert, King of the East Saxons, who died in 616, ordered Melitus, then Bishop of London, to perform the ceremony; but that St. Peter himself was beforehand with him, and consecrated A 3 secrated it in the night preceding the day appointed by his Majesty for that purpose, accompanied by angels, and surrounded by a glorious appearance of burning lights. That this legend continued to be believed after the building itself was destroyed, will appear by a charter, which we shall have occasion to mention hereafter; and though nothing can with certainty be concluded from these fictions, yet it may be presumed that both the ancient church, dedicated to St. Paul, in London, and this dedicated to St. Peter, in Westminster, were among the earliest works of the first converts to Christianity in Britain. With their new religion, they introduced a new manner of building; and their great aim seems to have been, by affecting loftiness and ornament, to bring the plain simplicity of the Pagan architects into contempt. Historians, agreeable to the legend, have fixed the æra of the first Abbey in the 6th century, and ascribed to Sebert the honour of conducting the work, and of completing that part of it at least that now forms the east angle, which probably was all that was included in the original plan. After the death of that pious Prince, his sons, relapsing into Paganism, totally deserted the church which their father had been so zealous to erect and endow; nor was it long before the Danes destroyed what the Saxons had thus contemptuously neglected. From this period, to the reign of Edward the Confessor, the first Abbey remained a monument of the sacrilegious fury of the times; but, by the prevailing influence of Christianity in that reign, the ruins of the ancient building were cleared away, and a most magnificent structure for that age erected in their place. In its form it bore the figure of a cross, which afterwards became a pat tern |
