Page:The Queens of England.djvu/118

 ELEANOR OF CASTILLE, FIRST QUEEN OF EDWARD THE FIRST. Among the monuments to departed kings and queens which surround the ruined, but still magnificent, mausoleum of Edward the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, there are two altar-tombs in particular, which recall a host of romantic asso- ciations, at which the stranger dwells the longest, and which are the last to fade from his memory. The first, which is of considerable size, is of gray unpolished marble — massive, unor- namented, and simple almost to rudeness ; looking like, what in reality it is, the sarcophagus of a warrior-king. But how can we find language to describe the surpassing beauty of the other! On a cenotaph of Petworth marble, and under a rich Gothic canopy, reclines a female figure of copper-gilt, habited in the graceful costume of the thirteenth century. "There it lies, not a feature of the face injured — not a finger broken off — perfect in its essentials as on the day it left the studio; whilst, all around, marks of injury and dilapidation meet you. on every side ; it is as though its own serene beauty had ren- dered violence impossible — had even touched the heart of the great destroyer Time himself." How easy and how dignified is the attitude of the recumbent figure ! How elegant the hands ! How gracefully, from under the regal diadem, the long tresses fall on the rounded shoulders. The countenance, too, which is represented as serenely smiling, is one of angelic loveliness, breathing eloquently of that feminine softness of character and purity of heart which were the characteristics of its living original. The former tomb is that of the great war- rior, Edward the First ; the other that of his beautiful and affectionate consort, Eleanor of Castile, — of her "Who, like a jewel, did hang twenty years About his neck, yet never lost her lustre ; Of her, that loved him with that excellence That angels love good men with."