loved" the west aisle of the north transept. the vicinity; his "equally loving and bewidow, Brigadier-General Wade (died 1745), who erected this whose monument by the notorious cenotaph, soon consoled herself with Roubiliac is conspicuous on the south another husband, and was eventually side of the nave, is connected with the buried in the Cloisters. In the northconquest of Minorca, where he carried west tower is a monument, by Scheethe outworks of St. Philip in a fort- makers, to William Horneck (died night. He also had fought under the 1746), chief engineer to George II., great Marlborough in his youth, but his whose inscription records that he learnt name is chiefly remembered now in con- the art of war under the great Duke of nection with the Young Pretender's Marlborough. He is connected with rebellion in 1745, when the good roads the Abbey as the son of a prebendary; he laid down to facilitate the passage and it is also interesting to recall the of his troops in the Highlands of Scot- fact that two of his descendants were land were celebrated by the well-known immortalized by Goldsmith as the couplet:Jessamy Bride and Little Comedy. We shall find many of the victories in If you had but seen these roads before Marlborough's campaigns inscribed on they were made, You would hold up your hands and bless General Wade In the north transept, near Kane, is another memorial of 1745, the bust of General Guest, who "closed a ser vice of sixty years by faithfully defending Edinburgh Castle against the rebels." The great Duke of Marlborough himself has no monument here, but his body rested in Cromwell's vault for twenty-four years, while the mausoleum as Blenheim was being prepared for it. His name is, however, often recalled on the Abbey walls. A clumsy monument in the south choir aisle, for instance, commemorates his younger brother, Admiral Churchill (died 1710), who had no claim to such an honor. Of the duke's daughter, Henrietta, we have spoken in connection with Congreve's memorial. A curious tablet, by Bird, on the north of the Dave, with a collection of arms and military trophies, records the death of General Killigrew in the battle of Almanza, 1707. Close by is the name of Colonel Bringfield, who was aide-decamp to the duke, shot in the head while holding his stirrup, and "remounting his lord on a fresh horse, his former failing under him," at the battle of Ramilies. Dean Stanley points out that the duke had really been thrown from his horse in leaping a ditch. Bringfield had been a constant attendant at the Abbey services, and lived in a monument opposite Wolfe's, put up to that popular and ancient hero, Lord Ligonier (died 1770), who first served as a soldier of fortune under the duke, and was present at Blenheim in this humble capacity. He afterwards became a general himself, and lived over ninety years in the service of four sovereigns, whose medallion heads surround his own portrait. Before Ligonier's name was added, Addison, walking here during the wars early in the century, comments on "the many uninhabited monuments, which had been erected to the memory of persons whose bodies were, perhaps, buried on the plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean." Of the latter class we shall find many examples, but before passing on to the naval heroes the memory of Major Richard Creed, who fell indeed at Blenheim, but lies in English soil, should be recalled. He was connected through his mother, who was an artist of no mean repute and a philanthropist, with Dryden and Samuel Pepys. Creed has another monument in Tichmarsh Church, where he was buried. Shot through the head at Blenheim, his body was dragged off the field by his younger brother, "at hazard of his own life." This tablet, now in the choir aisle, was originally in close proximity to a larger memorial (in the nave) to Harbord and Cottrell, and was placed there, as Creed's inscription tells us, because of (died 1744), who, when in command of the united English and Dutch fleets, now no longer at war, went down with his ship during a violent storm in the Channel. the worthy mention it makes of "that sept aisle, is another clumsy cenotaph great man, Edward, Earl of Sandwich," to his father-in-law, Admiral Balchen to whom he was related, “and whose heroic virtues he was anxious to imitate." The young sea-captains named above perished with their admiral, Lord Sandwich, when his ship was blown up in Southwold Bay, May 28, 1672, after "a terrible fight, maintained to admiration against a squadron of the Holland fleet for over six hours." The friends, it is said, might have saved themselves, but preferred to share their commander's fate; and to their memory, and as a record of their friendship, Harbord's father raised this conspicuous double tablet, and left forty shillings to be distributed annually amongst the poor of Westminster as long as it should remain "whole or undefaced in the Abbey Church." The gallant admiral himself has no monument, but lies in the Chapel of Henry VII. near Addison; while another victim of the same bloody fight, Sir Frescheville Holles, son of the wellknown antiquary, Gervase Holles, has a grave in St. Edmund's Chapel. That there is no memorial to the latter naval officer either is, perhaps, owing to the sentiments expressed in an inscription he left for his own gravestone, but which was, unfortunately, never cut there: "Know, reader, whosoever thou be, if I had lived 'twas my intent not to have owed my memory to any other monument but what my sword should raise for me of honor and victory." In the following year (1673) two other victims of this same bloody war against the Dutch were buried here. Only one, Richard Le Neve, received the honor of a monument; he was a young man of great promise, slain on board his own frigate, the Edgar, off the Dutch coast, August 11, 1673. His senior, the distinguished Admiral Sir Edward Spragge, was drowned in the same action, and lies close by in an unmarked grave. The space next Le Neve's tablet, in the Musician's Aisle, was, unfortunately, filled in the next century by a particularly heavy and unat tractive monument to Admiral West (died 1757); and further on, in the tran Wherever the eye rests in this portion of the Abbey some naval hero's name is conspicuous. In the south aisle of the choir "the figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and reposing himself upon cushions of state," slanders the memory of "that plain, gallant man," Sir Cloudesley Shovel (died 1707), and roused the wrath of Addison, exciting also Horace Walpole's wrathful comment that monuments like this and others of Bird's "made men of taste dread such honors." The "brave, rough" admiral met with a cruelly ignominious end. He was leading his victorious fleet home from Gibraltar, when the flagship was wrecked in the rocks of the Scilly Islands. Shovel's body was apparently lost, but in reality found and buried by some fishermen, and the admiral's identity afterwards established by a valuable ring which they took from his finger. Ultimately the corpse was disinterred and buried with all honor in the Abbey. ViceAdmiral Baker, who brought the rest of Shovel's squadron back in safety from the dangerous Scilly Isles, and afterwards (1716) died at Port Mahon, Minorca, has a curious monument ornamented with nautical emblems, in the nave. Next it is a still stranger one to another naval commander, Henry Priestman (died 1712), whose active service dated back to the reign of Charles II. The pyramid, round which grinning faces of sea-monsters, pieces of artillery, nautical and mathematical instruments, are grouped in strange confusion, is another specimen of Bird's want of taste. Of Shovel we are again reminded by a small tablet lower down this wall, which records the name of John Twysden, who was shipwrecked with his admiral. John was one of nine brothers, three of whom died for their country in three consecutive years. After him Josiah, the youngest, was the next victim. His tablet tells of his end at the siege of Agremont, in Flanders (1708). The eldest, Heneage, who was aide-de-camp to John, Duke of Argyll, has a monumental urn commemorating his death at the battle of Blaregnies, in Hainault (1709). Yet one more gallant youth I would fain recall before passing on, for, like the hero of the Chevy Chase ballad, when his legs were smitten off he thought only of his duty, and refused to have his wounds dressed till he had given his last orders, and then expired. This was Lord Aubrey Beauclerk (died 1741), whose monument by Scheemakers is in the west aisle of the north transept. He took part in the victorious expedition against Carthagena, under the command of Admiral Vernon, who had learnt his trade with the fleets of Shovel and Rooke, but was shelved soon after this exploit and died in retirement. A bust of Vernon, with a fancy statue of Fame, by Rysbrack, is over the door of the opposite aisle. Beauclerk's epitaph, in the inflated style of the period, is said to be by the poet Thomson. It ends with the bombastic lines: Dying, he bid Britannia's thunder roar, And Spain still felt him when he breath'd no more. There is not space to dwell on more sailors' names. In this transept alone the number of admirals commemorated is very noteworthy; Roubiliac's bust of Sir Peter Warren (died 1752), the face pitted with small-pox, and allegorical figures of Hercules and Navigation in attendance, is one of the most conspicuous. I have spoken of a monument to a youthful pair of friends, Harbord and Cottrell; on the same (south) side of the nave there is a peculiarly heavy and unattractive sarcophagus by Gibbs, usually passed by as of no interest. This, if only as a memorial of a friendship between two women which lasted forty years, is worth a new moments' attention. Mrs. Katherine Bovey (died 1726-7) was a lady of no mean reputation in her generation; she was of Dutch extraction, one of "those lofty. black, and lasting beauties, that strikes with reverence and yet delight," we learn from Ballard, who includes her in his "British Ladies." Married at fifteen to a man much older than herself, who proved a bad husband, she was left a widow at twenty-two, with a large fortune at her disposal and an estate in Gloucestershire. Although perpetually besieged by suitors, Mrs. Bovey never married again, but devoted the rest of her life to works of benevolence and charity, to hospitality, and to the cause of education. She was known amongst her admirers by the name of Portia, and Sir Richard Steele dedicated a volume of his "Ladies Library" to her. Her lifelong friend and companion, Mary Pope, distributed Mrs. Bovey's legacies, and, probably on the strength of bequests to some schools in Westminster, was allowed to erect a monument to her memory here. She was buried at Flaxley, her own home. Two more unsightly monuments not far from this commemorate the Generals Hargrave and Fleming (died 1750-51). Hargrave was governor of Gibraltar, and Fleming had been wounded at Blenheim in his youth, and Rebellion. The fame of neither, howin his later days took part in the '45 ever, is equal to the size of these monuments, which were erected by their families. Goldsmith's "Citizen of the World," in fact, only condescends to recognize Hargrave's as one to "some rich man," the general's wealth having been, according to popular opinion, his only title to an Abbey memorial. Even in those days, when Roubiliac's name was revered as a master-sculptor, there were many jeers at Hargrave's figure, which is represented struggling from a tomb, while a robust angel above, sounding the last trump, surveys the victory of Time over Death below. The Dean and Chapter used occasionally to be reproached for their neglect to repair this erection, on account of the falling pyramids, which were part of the sculptor's far-fetched design. Minerva and Hercules are conspicuous on Fleming's monument, which is surrounded by military standards, branches of laurel and cypress, and all kinds of warlike emblems. The last of Roubiliac's theatrical achievements in the Abbey-he is the author of seven in all-is the unwieldy figure of the great Handel in Poet's Corner, put there about nine years later. Near by this is another piece of the same sculptor's work, in which John, Duke of Argyll-to whom reference has been made before-is portrayed in Roman dress, surrounded by numerous allegorical figures, and this much-admired erection was actually allowed to cover the entrance to the old staircase by which the monks used to enter the church from their dormitory. The favorite sculptors of the late seventeenth, the eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries are only too well represented in the Abbey. Thus Bird, Horace Walpole's pet aversion, is the author of eleven monuments; Scheemakers, whose beautiful bust of Dryden cannot reconcile us to his other chief works, notably that in memory of Shakespeare, executed sixteen pieces in all. The two Bacons are actually responsible for nineteen, of which perhaps Lord Chatham's is the most offensive. The names of Nollekens, Banks, soldiers and sailors, and shown that The moving finger writes; and, having Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, From The Contemporary Review. LIFE IN A FRENCH COMMUNE. In dealing with French customs and it is impossible to generalize. Revolumœurs to use a comprehensive term— tions may come and go; the whole administrative system of the country may be reduced to one dead level of Cheere, Flaxman, Chantrey, Foley, uniformity, but the distinctive characBailey, Weekes, Westmacott, and others, will be found on numerous monuments, and one looks in vain amongst these allegorical groups, inartistic tablets, or pseudo-classic statues, for some sense of proportion or harmony with the Gothic church for which they were designed. Yet these and other sculptors were the lights of their day, and it is only within quite recent times that any attempt has been made to break the sequence of upright statues and busts. Of late medallions and tablets, as being least cumbrous and obtrusive, have been favored, and the fashion of large allegorical monuments has long passed away now, but not before they had crowded and defaced the Abbey walls with their vast bulk. If I have been able to arouse some interest in a few half-forgotten British teristics of the old Provinces remain. The Norman differs greatly from the Breton, the Breton from the Bourgignon, the Bourgignon from the Gascon. These peoples are strangely diverse in their habits and temperaments, in their system of life, their physical features, and even in their tongue, as the patois of one province is barely intelligible in another. I therefore premise that I am dealing with Bourgignons, in the agricultural districts of the Côte d'Or, who live far removed from contact with cities, and still further away from the influences of fin de siècle civilization. The Bourgignon is a distinct type. He is cheery, affable, and convivial. He lives well and works hard. He is more sociable than the Breton, less avaricious than the Auvergnat, not so excitable as the southerner. He is very hospitable generous with everything, so long as his sous are safe. He is nothing, if not economical. Without being demonstrative, he is intensely patriotic, and recalls with pride that two of the few repulses which the Germans received in the war of 1870 were at Nuits and Châteauneuf. The particular corner of the Côte d'Or with which I deal is a high tableland about twelve miles from Beaune. It is too high for vine-growing, except on a small scale with uncertain results. It is a representative agricultural district, thickly dotted with villages. There are no isolated farms or houses. The social instincts of the people lead them to live in village groups, one or more of which constitute the unit of local administration-the commune. other feathered stock. The ducks and geese have the exclusive use of a dirty pond of stagnant water in the middle of the square. The pond has been apparently made for them. It is not considered advisable or profitable to clean the roadway often, as the accumulation of garbage is much appreciated by the aforesaid feathered stock. Moreover, they eat it. The streets yet serve another purpose. Firewood is stacked here, and a convenient lodgment found for carts, barrows, ploughs, and other implements. What with one thing and another-the litter, the wood, the implements of husbandry, and the trees, to say nothing of the local color supplied by the poultry-the streets in the village are at least picturesque, if they are not clean. A visitor to the village will be struck Let us examine one of those typical by the presence of many old women village communes. The village is nothing but a collection of little farmhouses, dumped down in more or less irregular fashion. Each separate property consists of a dwelling-house at one end, a cowshed or stable at the other, the quarters for the poultry in between, and a granary overhead. As it happens that a national highway passes through the village, it possesses at least the semblance of one street. There are several other roadways lined with houses, and a triangular space which is dignified with the name of a square. It is here where the village pump ought to be, but civilization in this corner of la vieille Bourgogne can only furnish a draw-well. An old stone cross stands, like a sentinel, near the draw-well, pointing the way of sinners to the church, which occupies an elevated position overlooking the square. Although the village streets are not paved, that fact does not detract from their general utility. They serve more purposes than streets generally do. They are ornamented with manure heaps, which are deposited here on the payment of a small sum to the communal exchequer. They form the recreation and feeding ground for numerous flocks of hens, ducks, geese, and and the absence of young men. There are old men too; in fact, every other one you meet appears to be "an oldest inhabitant." But the women show the greater vitality. These old women are not pensioners on society. They are workers: whetner they are sixty, seventy, or eighty, they are workers. If they are not working in the fields, doing something to the crops, they are herding the cows or knitting at their doors. Everybody works. All are up at four in the morning in summer and five in the winter. Not that they need to slave for a living. Wealth is well distributed in the commune, and if there is apparently little comfort there is a good deal of stored-up wealth. Every one is a proprietor of something; if not of a bit of land, then of a house or a garden. There are no poor people in the commune. The people never heard of a workhouse; never made the acquaintance of the poor-rate. In a population of four hundred and fifty, over three hundred are registered proprietors at the mairie, where the big cadastre shows every house and every field in the commune. As there are no poor, so there are no criminals. When every one owns something there is no cause for any one to steal anything. Consequently you never see a |