'I have read so little,' said Maude.

'We will read it all together after next week. But it makes your
reading so much more real and intimate when you have stood at the
grave of the man who wrote. That's Chaucer, the big tomb there. He
is the father of British poetry. Here is Browning beside Tennyson--
united in life and in death. He was the more profound thinker, but
music and form are essential also.'

'What a splendid face!' cried Maude.

'It is a bust to Longfellow, the American.' They read the
inscription. 'This bust was placed among the memorials of the poets
of England by English admirers of an American poet.'

'I am so glad to have seen that. I know his poems so well,' said
Maude.

'I believe he is more read than any poet in England.'

'Who is that standing figure?'

'It is Dryden. What a clever face, and what a modern type. Here is
Walter Scott beside the door. How kindly and humorous his expression
was! And see how high his head was from the ear to the crown. It
was a great brain. There is Burns, the other famous Scot. Don't you
think there is a resemblance between the faces? And here are
Dickens, and Thackeray, and Macaulay. I wonder whether, when
Macaulay was writing his essays, he had a premonition that he would
be buried in Westminster Abbey. He is continually alluding to the