Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/47

Rh trip to the sea-side. On our way to London we stopped for a few hours at Battle about 7 miles from Hastings, and saw the Abbey built there by William the Conqueror after his victory. The Abbey is in a very good condition.

The other day we went to see Madame Toussaud's Show-rooms where there is a collection of wax-figures so true to life that a stranger who knows nothing about them would at once take them to be living men and women, and not wax-figures. A sense of politeness makes one almost ashamed to look at these worthy personages face to face. More than once I was on the point of mistaking some of the visitors (who were sitting or standing still) for wax-figures, and once when a wax-figure at which I was looking, shook its head (by some internal machinery,) I felt ashamed at having stared rudely at what for the moment I took to be a visitor. There are wax-figures of all the Sovereigns of England from William I. downwards, as well as of many eminent authors, divines, &c., Shakespeare, Scott, Knox, Calvin, Mary Queen of Scotts, Voltaire and many others. At one place you see in a group Napoleon Bonaparte and all his illustrious Generals, fine looking men some of them, and specially Marshal Ney. In the "chamber of horrors" you see the figures of many persons guilty of frightful murders and crimes.

I shall tell you in as few words as possible what I saw at the Westminister Abbey, certainly one of the most interesting monuments of antiquity of the England. The first man