I saw the Abbey Church at Bath this morning, which is handsome
enough, but not very remarkable, unless for the vast crowds of
its tombstones in every part; it has been completely repaired by
the corporation at a great expense. I went to Stonehenge, of
which no description is necessary; thence to Wilton; very fine
place; hurried through the gallery of marbles, but looked longer
at the pictures, which I understand and taste better; saw the
gardens and the stud, and then came here; went directly to the
Cathedral, with which I was exceedingly delighted, having seen
nothing like it for extent, lightness, and elegance. There is one
modern tomb by Chantrey which is very fine, that of Lord
Malmesbury, erected by his sister; but, however skilfully
executed or admirably designed, I do not like such monuments so
well, nor think them so appropriate to our cathedrals, as the
rude effigies of knights and warriors in complete armour, with
their feet on couchant hounds, or those stately though sometimes
gaudy and fantastic monuments, in which, among crowds of
emblematical devices and armorial bearings, the husband and the
wife lie side by side in the richest costume of the day, while
their children are kneeling around them; these, with the
venerable figures of abbots and bishops, however rudely
sculptured, give me greater pleasure to look upon than the
choicest productions of Roubillac, Nollekens, or Chantrey, which,
however fine they may be, seem to have no business there, and to
intrude irreverently among the mighty dead of olden time. This
cathedral is in perfect repair within and without; the colour of
the stone is singularly beautiful, and it is not blocked up with
buildings, Bishop Barrington having caused all that were adjacent
to be removed. The chapter house and cloisters are exceedingly
fine, but the effect is spoilt in the former by great bars of
iron which radiate in all directions from a ring attached to the
supporting pillar, and which have been put there (probably
without any necessity) to relieve it of a portion of the
superincumbent weight. It is remarkable that wherever I have gone
in my travels, I have found the same complaints of the
mischievous propensities of that silly, vulgar, vicious animal,
called the public. Amongst the beauties of nature or of art,
rocks, caves, or mountains, in ruined castles and abbeys, or
ancient but still flourishing cathedrals, the same invariable
love of pilfering and mutilating