iarities. The tower, a fine specimen of
Norman architecture, dark, ragged, and grim, gives indication of great
age. It is of a kind often met with in ancient English towns; you can see
its brothers at York, Shrewsbury, Canterbury, Worcester, Warwick, and in
many places sprinkled over the northern heights of London; but amid its
tame surroundings in this little colliery settlement it looms with a
peculiar frowning majesty, a certain bleak loneliness, both unique and
impressive. The edifice is of the customary crucial form,--a low stone
structure, having a peaked roof, which is supported by four great pillars
on each side of the center aisle. The ceiling, which is made of heavy
timbers, forms almost a true arch above the nave. There are four large
windows on each side of the nave, and two on each side of the chancel,
which is beneath a roof somewhat lower than that of the main building.
Under the pavement of the chancel, and back of the altar rail,--at which
it was my privilege to kneel while gazing upon this sacred spot,--is the
grave of Byron.... Nothing is written on the stone that covers his
sepulcher except the simple name of BYRON with the dates of his birth and
death, in brass letters, surrounded by a wreath of leaves in brass, the
gift of the King of Greece; and never did a name seem more stately or a
place more hallowed. The dust of the poet reposes between that of his
mother on his right hand, and that of his Ada,--"sole daughter of my house
and heart,"--on his left. The mother died on August 1, 1811; the daughter,
who had by marriage become the Countess of Lovelace, in 1852. "I buried
her with my own hands," said the sexton, John Brown, when, after a little
time, he rejoined me at the altar-rail. "I told them exactly where he was
laid when they wanted to put that brass on the stone; I remembered it
well, for I lowered the coffin of the Countess of Lovelace into this
vault, and laid her by her father's side." And when presently we went into
the vestry, he produced the Register of Burials and displayed the record
of that interment in the following words: "1852. Died at 69 Cumberland Pl.
London. Buried December 3. Aged thirty-six.--Curtis Jackson." The Byrons
were a short-lived race. The poet himself had just turned thirty-six; his
mother was only forty-six when she passed away. This name of Curtis
Jackson in the register was that of the rector or curate then incumbent
but now departed....

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