1833-31). VISIT TO WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 161 



CHAPTER IV. 



RESIDENCE IN LONDON DEGREE OF M.D. 



" In this theatre of man's life, it is reserved only for God and angels to 

 be lookers-on." PREFACE TO BACON'S 'Advancement of Learning.' 



IN the renewal of the joyous companionship of former times, 

 the brothers were truly happy. " I can't tell you half what I 

 have seen," George's first letter to his mother says. " I've been 

 at the British Museum, and gazed with delight on the splendid 

 fossils, the huge crocodile-like monsters of the ancient deep, 

 and one specimen I wished you had seen of those marks of 

 beasts' feet which you used so much to laugh at. ... I called 

 on Professor Graham, and received a most courteous reception. 

 We talked together for an hour and a half. I told him some 

 of my speculations, and he smiled, as all older and wiser heads 

 always do. I was invited to come to the laboratory whenever 

 I listed ; but the distance is tremendous, at least six miles from 

 Daniel's place." 



About a week later he tells her, " I have visited Westminster 

 Abbey since I wrote you last, and strolled through that magni- 

 ficent pile. Daniel and I were fixing on the corners we should 

 lie in when we are buried in that noble sepulchre. Daniel's 

 steps led him to a wide but gloomy cloister ; mine were long 

 arrested at the small tablet raised to Sir H. Davy's memory 

 It's a shame, a shame ! that's far too feeble a word it's a poor 

 piece of very mean feeling, to see in Westminster Abbey enor- 

 mous piles of marbles, pyramids bolstered up by all sort of 

 extravagant allegorical figures, raised to the memory of soldiers, 

 many of whom were but the obedient servants of accomplished 

 generals, while Davy has but a little corner of one of the subsi- 



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