Upon this, I began to consider with my self, what innumerable Multitudes of People lay confus’d together under the Pavement of that ancient Cathedral; how Men and Women, Friends and Enemies, Priests and Soldiers, Monks and Prebendaries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended together in the same common Mass; how Beauty, Strength, and Youth, with Old-age, Weakness, and Deformity, lay undistinguish’d in the same promiscuous Heap of Matter.

After having thus surveyed this great Magazine of Mortality, as it were in the Lump, I examined it more particularly by the Accounts which I found on several of the Monuments [which [1]] are raised in every Quarter of that ancient Fabrick.  Some of them were covered with such extravagant Epitaphs, that, if it were possible for the dead Person to be acquainted with them, he would blush at the Praises which his Friends [have [2]] bestowed upon him.  There are others so excessively modest, that they deliver the Character of the Person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by that Means are not understood once in a Twelve-month.  In the poetical Quarter, I found there were Poets [who [3]] had no Monuments, and Monuments [which [4]] had no Poets.  I observed indeed that the present War [5] had filled the Church with many of these uninhabited Monuments, which had been erected to the Memory of Persons whose Bodies were perhaps buried in the Plains of Blenheim, or in the Bosom of the Ocean.

I could not but be very much delighted with several modern Epitaphs, which are written with great Elegance of Expression and Justness of Thought, and therefore do Honour to the Living as well as to the Dead.  As a Foreigner is very apt to conceive an Idea of the Ignorance or Politeness of a Nation from the Turn of their publick Monuments and Inscriptions, they should be submitted to the Perusal of Men of Learning and Genius before they are put in Execution.  Sir Cloudesly Shovel’s Monument has very often given me great Offence:  Instead of the brave rough English Admiral, which was the distinguishing Character of that plain gallant Man, [6] he is represented on his Tomb by the Figure of a Beau, dress’d in a long Perriwig, and reposing himself upon Velvet Cushions under a Canopy of State, The Inscription is answerable to the Monument; for, instead of celebrating the many remarkable Actions he had performed in the service of his Country, it acquaints us only with the Manner of his Death, in which it was impossible for him to reap any Honour.  The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for want of Genius, shew an infinitely greater Taste of Antiquity and Politeness in their Buildings and Works of this Nature, than what we meet with in those of our own Country.  The Monuments of their Admirals, which have been erected at the publick Expence, represent them like themselves; and are adorned with rostral Crowns and naval Ornaments, with beautiful Festoons of [Seaweed], Shells, and Coral.