236 A Paper on Monumental Brasses 



so often found engraved on these brasses, the details and arrange- 

 ments, and the characteristics of each successive style of his art. 

 The Artist has examples in the earliest of these engravings, of the 

 beauty and excellency of his work ; and can trace as they come 

 down nearer to our own times their gradual decay, for so it is that 

 the very oldest are the very best, the very latest, (for they come 

 down as late as the end of the 17th century,) are the most tasteless 

 and barbarous. The Chronologist may be much helped by these 

 monuments, fixing and determining as tbey often do by dates, the 

 different events of history. The general Antiquary may gain in- 

 formation as to the icriting and pointing of the day, as to the 

 formation of letters in different ages ; their contractions and abbre- 

 viations ; and so be helped in deciphering other ancient engravings, 

 such as seals and medals, the paintings in windoivs, the illumination 

 of old MSS., &c. Thus we see how these Monumental Brasses are 

 useful as well as interesting. 



We may learn also a lesson oi piety and humility from these me- 

 morials of ancient days. The very attitude of the figure, lying 

 with closed hands as if in prayer, or one hand raised in praj'er, 

 the other linked in that of husband or wife (like that of Draycot), 

 or resting on the handle of the sheathed sword, intimating perhaps 

 that the departed gained the victory through the Lord's help, and 

 now sleeps in peace, " like a warrior taking his rest, with his mailed 

 coat around him," suggests religious and humble thoughts : so 

 different from the unbecoming attitude of figures of more recent 

 device, unbecoming in God's house : for we often see modern 

 figures reclining on their elbows as if reposing on a so/a, or sitting 

 in a chair reading or writing a book, or standing in the dress of 

 a soldier, or of a lawyer, or of a senator, as if addressing the senate or 

 the court; -aitevljunhecomingthe sacred buildingwheTeihe monument 

 is placed. No one can behold the noble Abbey Church at Westminster 

 without being struck by the incongruity of the monuments there ; 

 and seeing how many of them disfigure, and we may say, disgrace 

 that splendid building. The piety and religiousness and the humility 

 of many of the inscriptions on these ancient monuments, nobly con- 

 trast with the vanity, and irreverence, and pride, and folly of those 



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