The wonderful miscellany of posturing figures in the Abbey, the men, women and children, gods, goddesses, cupids, river gods, smirking bishops leaning comfortably on their elbows, warriors ascending to Heaven, sea fights, marble firmaments, &c., have been often described and ridiculed. Still they are curious as an expression of the feeling of their day, and, as progressive changes in treatment, are of value as signifying the tone of social and public thought. As Professor Westmacott has shown in one of his lectures, even the early reposing figures in the chapels betoken the religious feeling of the time. “The recumbent effigies,” he says, “with uplifted hands and serious expression, arrest attention, and are aids to reflection. But the time came when the mere personal honour and glorification of the subject was to be illustrated. The figures are now found turned on their side and leaning on their elbow, and look out from their resting-place as if inviting the notice and admiration of the passers-by.” This contrast is perfectly just, but is it not the effect of the change of religion, and in the national feeling towards the dead? The old pre-Reformation monuments are plastic reminders to pray for the dead--their images are displayed with a grave and sad solemnity; they are shown kneeling or in tranquil repose. On the other hand, the obstreperous displays of warriors crowned by pagan “Victories” betoken a time when the nation was engaged in wars and desperate struggles. The bishop on his elbow conveyed the idea of stalled and comfortable ease at a period when little was expected from the pastoral office.
“How revoltingly misplaced too,” says another writer, “is the shouldering, elbowing strife, with which, like advertising placards or rival shops with every trick that can be devised for glaring prominence, they struggle to outstare each other, as if the very well-being of the defunct depended upon whose statue shall be seen first, or whose epitaph read oftenest! How calmly, amid all this feverish strife, lie the modest retiring memorials of the mighty or the worthy of old, from the dignified reposing figures of the royal Plantagenets to the unpretending brasses of the untitled and humble, if indeed modern selfishness has left any uncovered!”