his
parents. While all the rest bow their heads in prayer, he alone looks
cheerfully upwards. Behind this are the statues of Mrs. Siddons and her
brother, John Kemble, to whom we alluded before in connection with the
earlier actors and actresses, and other comparatively modern memorials of
more or less interest. In the middle chapel, that dedicated to St.
Michael, the theatrical monument to Lady Elizabeth Nightingale, a
grotesque _tour de force_ of Roubiliac's, is sure to call forth some
remarks, but we prefer to pass to a curious tablet on the wall beyond it,
which commemorates a certain Mrs. Ann Kirton, with a large eye above it
(presumably that of the widower), whence tears pour over the inscription.
Hidden away, at the back of another monument on the opposite side, is a
tablet in the worst style of the eighteenth century. Above a small
sinking ship the large and material soul of a gallant seaman is seen
ascending to heaven, and we remind our party of Cowper's well-known poem
on the wreck of the _Royal George_ and Admiral Kempenfelt's untimely end.

His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down,
With twice four hundred men.

{111}

To the right as we pass back again is a mural memorial to Sir John
Franklin, the discoverer of the North-West Passage. The loss of himself
and of his brave crew amidst impenetrable walls of snow and ice is
portrayed upon it; beneath is an oft-quoted epitaph by Tennyson--lines
which stir the hearts of all who pause to read them.

The circle of the apse has now been completed, and we pass through the
iron gate into the Statesmen's Aisle. Around us on every side are the
graves and statues of British politicians, whose names are for the most
part household words at home and still remembered abroad. With these are
also the memorials of soldiers, sailors, lawyers, and a few others, to
some of which we shall allude in passing. Conspicuous against the first
column is Sir Robert Peel's statue, inappropriately draped in a Roman
toga. Beyond his was placed in 1903 Brock's figure of William Ewart
Gladstone, who is represented in an attitude familiar to those who have
heard him speak, when addressing the House of Commons, or at a political
meeting. Gladstone's Life has already been in the hands of the reading
public, but the official biography of Benjamin Disraeli, Lord
Beaconsfield, the leader of the opposite party, is only now being
writt