martyr himself; a loss which the pious brethren who sleep beneath the brasses around us, if they could be aroused to a consciousness of the desecration of this the altered scene of their once splendid worship, would probably consider of far greater importance. But what says the inscription above. S. Albanus Verolamensis Anglorum Protomartyr XVII. Junii CCXCIII. Certes, an accurate chronologist this, to whomsoever we may stand indebted for the record. One would almost think that the art of ascertaining dates with precision had been as completely lost since his time, as that of staining glass vermilion. At no great distance, however, the damp wall displays another legend, from the perusal of which we turn with a feeling somewhat deeper than that of mere gratified curiosity : Hic jacet Humfredus, dux ille Glocestrius olim Detector, dum ficta notat miracula cœci. Lumen erat patriæ, columen venerabile regni Pacis amans, musisque favens melioribus, unde Gratum opus Oxonio, quæ nunc schola sacra refulget: Invida sed mulier regno regi sibi nequam Abstulit hunc humili, vix hoc dignata sepulchro Invidiâ rumpente tamen post funera vivit. The information conveyed by the wretched jingle, and still worse construction of this pedantic epitaph, is of too interesting a character to allow us to spend a moment upon its criticism, or to devote more than a single thought to its absurdity. This, then, is the final resting-place of the good Duke Humphrey, the brother of the famous conqueror of France, the ambitious traitor of Jacqueline of Hainault, for many years lord protector of England, and the leading spirit of her councils, as well as the cautious helmsman of her estates through a long period of trouble and commotion. The workmanship of the tomb erected to his memory is worthy of the name which it recalls, although deprived of some of its fairest appendages by those zealous despoilers, the iron-handed soldiers of Cromwell, during their occupation of the abbey of St. Alban's as a lodging for their cavalry horse and men: spared, however, after but partial damage, by those who were not always wont to set limits to their passion for demolition, still the monu. ment remains, with its beautifully cut arches and chaste ornaments, as perfect, apparently, as when the hand of the workman left his finishing touches upon it. Of the prince himself, to whose memory it was erected, little can be said, with which the most superficial reader of history is not already well acquainted, yet we may well be allowed to take a brief review of the principal events in his chequered career. Appointed to a station of the highest trust during a long minority, the best comment upon his conduct in office will be found in the epithet generally attached to his name, and which will prove a far more durable monument to his virtues than brass or stone. During the many years through which the provinces of France were being wrested one by one from the grasp of England by the arms of Charles the Seventh and the redoubtable Dunois, and the public attention was more immediately directed to the posture of affairs abroad, his power and influence, though often opposed, were sufficiently strong to suppress all opposition to his authority at home. But with the expiration of the minority of Henry the Sixth gathered fast those clouds of faction and hostility, beneath which his star was soon to be veiled in fatal darkness; and the marriage of the king with the daughter of Regnes, of Anjou, completed that ruin which the malicious efforts of the Cardinal of Winchester and the Duke of Suffolk had long been preparing. The first blow was aimed where it could not fail of inflicting the most poignant anguish. His duchess Eleanor, daughter of Lord Cobham, was accused of sorcery and witchcraft, and, after the execution of two of her alleged accomplices, condemned to perpetual imprisonment within the walls of Peel Castle, in Man. Then came the usual circumstances, which have so often attended the closi scenes of the drama of a statesman's career—the desertion of friends, the insult of ene mies,-coldness on the part of his sovereign,-open impeachment and the malicious articles of accusation, drawn up by calumny under the cloak and guise of justice. A parliament was convoked at Bury St. Edmunds, and a summons issued for his appearance; but before the time appointed for his trial, and on the morning after the 28th of February, 1447, the good duke Humphrey was found dead in his chamber-dying, no doubt, as his famous predecessor in dignity, in the reign of Richard the Second, who so much resembled him in all but character, had died before him. Who does not remember the general indistinctness of horror, and yet, in parts, the vivid minuteness of incident, with which Shakspeare has invested this scene of midnight assassination, by the broken words uttered amidst the last agonies of Beaufort. It is, of course, necessary to state, that the imagination of the poet is the only authority for a single particular there related respecting the good duke's end. He died, however; and the hatred of his enemies, thus at length satiated, allowed his funeral solemnities to be celebrated with all the splendour which his distinguished rank and services deserved. The people of England, by whom he had long been idolized while living, loudly expressed their sorrow for their common benefactor and friend. Many a castled keep, doubtless, in Maine and Normandy, and fair Guienne, heard the voice of regret for virtues so far and widely known. Many a forest chapel in shadowy Hainault heard the prayer breathed from no insincere lips, for the peace and repose of the departed soul. Nor, perhaps, was the harp of Provence silent upon so popular a theme; but years passed away, and, like the blazonry and pomp which accompanied the last of rites with which his name was connected on earth, faded from men's minds the recollection of his wisdom and his deeds: even the very spot in which his remains were deposited became totally unknown, until, about a century ago, the mattocks of the workmen employed in preparing a grave near at hand, broke through the walls of the narrow vault, and once more admitted the glimpses of day to fall upon the coffin in which his bones were enclosed. We are, therefore, allowed to gaze upon all which time and the antiquaries (and pity it is that such names should be coupled in the work of destruction) have left us of the illustrious Duke of Gloucester. A lozenge-shaped door, level with the pavement, is raised, and the visitor descends by a narrow flight of stone steps into the low crypt, into which just sufficient light is admitted to reveal the reliques of mortality which form the object of his curiosity. The leaden coffin itself seems to have been rudely rent open; and scanty reverence, indeed, has been shewn towards its contents: for, two thigh-bones, of no ordinary magnitude, and the upper part of the skull, are the only portions of its occupant which lodge there still. The other bones have travelled to all points of the compass, under the care of those wor. thy votaries at his sepulchre, whose desire of gaining actual possession of spoils of such high interest, has proved somewhat too strong for their love of honesty, or fear of detection. Perhaps some collector may yet be found, with zeal and ability enough to make his escape with what remains;—but far distant be the day! and in the mean time, deep and striking is the lesson which these remnants of what was once termed " great" continue to read from their sepulchral solitude. Can the sense of the nothingness of all on earth be more effectually aroused, at any time or under any circumstances, than while we hold in our hands this broken portion of a once coroneted brow! Scarcely can we conceive, that beneath this unconscious texture of material substance, on which the careless touch so lightly dwells, dwelt formerly that commanding intellect, tried by the nicely balanced interests of a wavering and unsettled state, and found not unequal to the task: yet here were engendered the master-strokes of policy, the sage devices of counsel, the startling bursts of impassioned rhetoric, reason and fancy, reflection and judgment, the deliberate resolve, and the speedily executing will. Here beat that active brain, so long disturbed with questions of doubtful aspect, and plans of questionable efficacy, pregnant with schemes for the depression of rivals and the advancement of friends, or, Early and late, debating to and fro, How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe. Within this narrow compass, exultation and anxiety, the changing feelings of grief and joy, of disappointment and success, have chased each other for years, like shadows passing over the surface of a summer pool, mingled, doubtless, with many a complacent reflection upon esteem and honour possessed, and dreams of more ample dignity yet to come. But how little credence would have been given to the tale, if, in his days of palmy state, this mighty counsellor and renowned prince, the brother and uncle of kings, and himself a sovereign in all but the name, had been told that the time would come when his decaying dust would be exposed to the common curiosity, at a price likely to exclude none from the privilege, and his almost canonized bones allowed to be unceremoniously grasped by "hands mechanical," or made the subject of a rude and senseless jest, on the part of the most unlettered clown. Truly, the homily of Shakspeare's sexton might well be repeated here. Reverently, therefore, gentle visitant, lay aside that emblem of mortality, and type of the short-lived greatness of its more noble possessor. "Alas! did those bones cost no more i'the breeding, than thus to play at loggats with ?" To what next shall we turn our attention?—To that delicately wrought brass of the pious abbot Delamere, so well traced with crozier, cope, and mitre, and presenting his calm and saintly aspect, to claim the veneration of posterity for one who swayed the pastoral staff within these precincts, when time was younger by some six hundred years than now? or to those inimitable columns which ascend along the lofty walls, to unite their ribbed summits above, for the decoration of the painted and blazoned roof, and which are hung with the escutcheons of former benefactors, displayed at such a height as almost to look like gems inlaying the stone to which they are attached? Here are cinerary urns from the site of ancient Verulam, for the antiquary; and bones of singular conformation, for the physiologist; but, with power to attract our attention above all other objects, and surprising us into an involuntary exclamation of delight, rises that elaborate screen, wrought from the yielding marble with apparently as much facility as if the lightest ivory had constituted its material, and finished with as much care as the artist usually bestows upon the same costly substance. It is with reluctance that we withdraw our eyes from a work which, by its beauty and redundance of ornament, seems a production of Nature herself, rather than of her feeble imitatress-Art: but time presses, and the ancient choir lies yet unexamined before us. Still, as we proceed, each successive step reminds us that we are moving where death has been rearing his trophies for ages. Faintly and mournfully lies the sunlight upon the cold dark stones, which still bear the outlines of many a figure, represented in a kneeling or recumbent posture, with hands clasped, and the labelled prayer graven beside him. Among these, the effigy of a warrior, armed at all points, with his long sword girded at his side, and traced after a rude fashion, which recalls to our recollections the efforts of the very earliest engravers, possesses rather more interest than the rest; for tradition points it out as marking the grave of Sir John Grey, of Groby, the husband of Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Woodville, and ultimately the queen of Edward the Fourth. This knight, it seems, was the only person of distinction who fell in the second battle of St. Alban's, stricken, as the heralds would say, between the houses of York and Lancaster, in the month of Feb. 1461, on Bernard's heath, a wild waste to the north of the town, which yet retains its former name. The event of this second contest, delivered almost upon the same ground, and under the same circumstances, was exactly the reverse of that which had preceded it, and although the slaughter seems principally to have fallen upon the common soldiers on both sides, the day was fiercely disputed, and the fortune of the field long continued doubtful. The Yorkists, whose archery seems, on most occasions, to have possessed a decided superiority over that of their rivals, having first gained the town and market-place, long repulsed the entering forces, headed by Margaret of Anjou in person, by a storm of arrows discharged with unerring effect, but were at length driven from their posts, and compelled to come to a close encounter on even ground without the town. Here, after a severe struggle, the Yorkists seemed again to be recovering their superiority; but, unfor tunately, a sudden panic fell upon the men of Kent posted in the van, who, with their commander Lovelace, were the first to turn their backs to the enemy. Their example influenced the whole army with a similar feeling. The Duke of Norfolk, with the earls of Warwick and Arundel, finding every attempt to rally their forces useless, deserted the field, to secure their own safety; and a tumultuous flight, on the part of the rest, was followed by a headlong pursuit, continued with unsparing fury until night-fall, when the Lancastrians returned to the town with their rescued king, who was again invested with the shadow of power and sovereignty, to be again deposed under circumstances of still greater indignity. Little was it imagined that the death of the single knight who fell on the side of the victors in that day's strife, would have so material an effect upon the future destinies of England. Close at hand lies one who during his life-time was well acquainted with the principal actors in the eventful times of which we have been speaking. Struck with the elegant tomb erected to his memory, embellished with wheat-ears, and exhibiting one of the earliest specimens of what is usually termed the Tudor style of arch, we are tempted to inquire the name of him who rests beneath the decorated sepulchre. John de Whethamstede, then, gentle reader, was born in a hamlet of that name in the vicinity of St. Alban's, and, long a monk in the priory of Tynemouth in Northumberland, was elected abbot of this monastery in the early part of the reign of Henry the Sixth, and filled his high office with credit and dignity for the space of twenty years. He was long on terms of friendship with the good duke Humphrey, from whom, of his great wisdom, saith his chronicler, he procured for his church the manor of Pembroke in South Wales, and, after the first battle of St. Alban's, gained, by his intercession with the Duke of York, the rites of sepulture for the bodies of the lords slain on the Lancastrian side, which were lying in the streets untouched; no one, as we are told, having the courage to remove them. In the year 1455, he voluntarily resigned his office, but was shortly afterwards again elected, and enjoyed his dignity until the day of his death. If a more particular account of his deeds is required, be it known to all whom it may concern, that beside the gift of many chalices, vestments, and flagons, bestowed at different times upon the monastery, he also decorated it with divers painted images and inscriptions in golden letters; that he caused our ladye's chapel to be trimmed and rarely painted with stories out of the sacred history, and with verses curiously drawn in gold; and built a small chapel in the south part of the church, for his own burial-place; that he caused, moreover, new windows to be made and glazed in the north part of the church, which was somewhat dark, that it might appear more bright and glorious, with several hexameters inscribed on the glass under the images of certain heathen philosophers, and caused a fair large window to be made in the north aisle. Thus far the historian, to whose long catalogue of meritorious deeds we have only to add, that John of Whethampstede departed this life in the fourth year of Edward the Fourth, full of days and honours, but with "the ruling passion strong in death," leaving a sum of money for the purchase of a bell, to be called after him; as well as newly to glaze the windows in the cloisters. Many a gilded agnus dei, represented in full blazonry on the roof, yet remains, to speak of his industry in decoration, and a beautiful image of Peace and Serenity rises within the mind in connexion with his memory, as we read the motto which, in distant allusion to his name, is couched in the scriptural words, "Valles exultabunt." A far more admirable piece of monumental workmanship, however, is seen on the opposite side of the choir, on the tomb of Thomas Ramridge, an abbot beloved both by God and man, according to his eulogist, who was the immediate predecessor, in his office, to the famous Wolsey. Fair, indeed, is the tracery surrounding the graven rams which decorate his escutcheon; and light as the first frost-work, which nature weaves beneath the chill wintry sky, are the sculptured ornaments which decorate the inside of that highly wrought canopy. Of the tenant of this stately tomb, however, little remarkable is recorded. We only know what, indeed, we should be well contented with knowing, that during his life he was universally respected and esteemed: that he died at an age considered premature, may be inferred from the mournful verse engraver on his sepulchre :— Dixi, in medio dierum, Vadam ad portas inferi. Forty abbots and one, are computed to have swayed the crozier within the walls of St. Alban's Abbey; of whom, with the exception of Wolsey, Thomas Ramridge was the last of note. A few years after his decease, the hands of authorized plunder were laid upon its treasures and estates; and the king's visitors descending, armed with a power which none dared to resist, drove the unfortunate monks from their quiet cloisters and cells of meditation, to mourn elsewhere the fall of their sanctuary, and to seek in some distant spot a shelter for their bones, which they had once fondly hoped to lay where those of thousands of their fraternity had been committed to earth before them. The lordly buildings of the monastery itself, so often the abodes of our English monarchs and their attendant courts, were shortly after levelled to the ground; and the abbey church would have shared the same fate, had it not been rescued from impending destruction, and purchased from Edward the Sixth at the price of four hundred pounds, by the mayor and corporation of the town. Before quitting the choir, we cannot refrain from casting one more look upon its superb ceiling. After all, heraldry has its fascinations; and true hieroglyphics of the records of chivalry are its begants, water-bougets, cockle-shells, and martlets proper. How rich is the glow of colour from those ancient bearings, and how many a vision of perished splendour do they recall! Here glisten the arms of the long-subverted kingdom of Jerusalem; and close at hand is the fanciful emblem of the equally forgotten kingdom of Man, with many a regal device beside, on fields of every hue, from the stainless argent to the deeply glowing gules; yet we cannot pause to examine them in succession, for the task would grow into a work of hours, ere completed. Leaving, therefore, that part of the building which is still devoted to the purposes of divine worship, the spacious nave opens upon us with its massive pillars, and aisles of amazing length. This is indeed, perspective upon a noble scale; and the eye luxuriates in long-continued pleasure, while following the range of arch after arch, of the most elegant Norman architecture, majestically receding from the view, until the broad and pointed apertures seem reduced to mere lines in the remote distance. Little decoration has been bestowed upon the imposing simplicity which characterises this part of the sacred structure; and the only conspicuous object which strikes us, in its whole extent, is a single funeral escutcheon, hung against a broad column, and faintly tinged by the rays of the slanting sun. The gilded cherub surmounting the armorial bearings, inform us of the sex of the deceased; but her name and family, with the exception of the charges which adorn the shield, and which to such ordinary observers as ourselves are of course unknown, there seems no sign to indicate. Nor need we more, to furnish imagination with a topic on which to expatiate at full liberty. Like the single key-note, which when struck suggests to the musician a continued flow of harmonious modulations, this simple circumstance is enough to evoke a long train of images, which lose nothing of their interest from the slightly melancholy tinge communicated by the fact from which they originate. We think of the mistress of some green domain, long surrounded by the endearing relations of social life, and follow her through the various characters of bride, mother, and widowed head of an ancient house, to find her gracefully becoming each, whether painted by the visionary pencil as the youthful ornament of her stately halls, or the matron guide and directress of a smiling offspring, and pride of a prosperous tenantry, or, lastly, as the venerable example to a succeeding generation, taught to respect her virtues and emulate her name. Such are the outlines of the picture; and many an hour of domestic content, many a scene of hospitable enjoyment, brightens the canvass, before we arrive at the closing display of melancholy pageantry; and the day, when, amidst the tears of her dependants, and the louder sorrow of those connected with her by far dearer ties, the lady of the deserted mansion is borne to share the dreamless rest of her ancestral |