Abbot of Waltham, who kept it in his church till the dissolution.

Then began a series of hairbreadth escapes, through which it is wonderful the work should have reached its present home. The last Abbot of Waltham saved it from destruction by sending it to New Hall, a seat of the Butlers, in Wiltshire; from whence it was purchased, with the seat, by Thomas Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, whose son sold them to General Monk. The war against all such superstitious exhibitions of artistical skill was now raging hotly, and Monk knew there was no chance of his window escaping, except by its strict concealment; accordingly he buried it. At the Restoration, it was restored to the chapel at New Hall. Again danger threatened it: the chapel was destroyed by a new possessor, who, however, hoping to sell the window to some church, preserved it, cased up, and after some time sold it to Mr. Conyers, for his chapel at Epping; by this gentleman's son it was finally sold, in the last century, to the committee for repairing and beautifying St. Margaret's. Had ever window before so moving a history?

INTERESTING as many of the buildings that fall within the scope of the present article individually are, from their intrinsic merits, and the variety of historical and biographical recollections-to say nothing of less important matters-that belong to them, it is as a whole that we should first look at them, if we would do justice either to them, to their architect, or to those whose conduct deserves more admiration than it has received, the architect's employers. We must especially recall to mind the position of the citizens of London, if we would rightly understand or appreciate the noble qualities, of which the churches of London are the enduring memorials. Every stone marks a difficulty conquered-a sacrifice made on the part of those incapacitated in no ordinary degree for the making of sacrifices-an active exhibition of heroic hope, where men might have been not altogether without excuse, for a long period, of something much more nearly approximating in its characteristics to despair. We must remember-to review for a moment the successive stages of the great event in question-that "that which made the ruin the more dismal was, that it was begun on the Lord's Day morning:

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never was there the like Sabbath in London; some churches were in flames that day; and God seems to come down, and to preach himself in them, as He did in Mount Sinai, when the Mount burned with fire. Such warm preaching those churches never had; such lightning-dreadful sermons never were before delivered in London. In other churches ministers were preaching their farewell sermons, and people were hearing with quaking and astonishment." * We must remember the result:-twelve churches only saved out of the ninety-seven standing within the walls. We must behold the miserable inhabitants-all miserable!—rich and poor, young and old, weak and strong, reduced for the moment to one common level-in their bivouacs in the surrounding fields and open country, where for months great numbers had to remain. We must above all weigh the utter ruin that many must have been plunged into by their losses, the difficulties requiring years of exertion and privation to overcome experienced by still more, the necessity for the husbanding of every penny of money, every thought and energy of the mind, on the part of all, to re-instate themselves in their former position. Houses the houseless could not but build, the commercial capital of the world could not from motives of the most evident self-interest remain long without its halls and warehouses, both piety and the habits of piety would naturally impel men to obtain some fresh places of worship; but when we find what an architect they did employ for their churches, what sums of money they did expend upon them, and how numerous were the buildings they did erect, it is impossible to repress a warm feeling of admiration at the conduct of our civic forefathers, or to resist the whispers of national pride that explain and concentrate the whole in one appropriate word (and never may that word lose its magic!) as the conduct of-Englishmen. These things, to our minds, are the best parts of the history of our metropolitan churches.

Of course, impossibilities were not attempted; and such would have been the erection of these buildings immediately after the fire. They were content, no doubt, at first, to worship God beneath his own beautiful sky, that temple not made with hands, and then, as conveniences and time presented, beneath places of temporary shelter; it is also to be remembered that the few existing churches would give accommodation to the greatest possible number of the members of those which had been destroyed: and thus we may presume to have passed the first two or three years. The general character and direction of the earliest movement towards the erection of the present structures are not unhappily illustrated by the case of Allhallows, Lombard Street, as that case is shown to us by notices written at the time in the parish register. On the 15th of February, 1669, the parishioners resolved they "should congregate and meet together about the worship of God" in their own parish, and accordingly deputed persons to select a place, and build thereon a temporary structure. They next directed that the steeple should be viewed, to see whether it could be strengthened and supported; on the 21st of the same month they ordered the walls of the body of the building to be coped with straw and lime, to preserve them from further damage. A lingering hope is here perceptible that the church might be repaired rather than rebuilt; but after the lapse of another year or so, when we may suppose the

* Rev. T. Vincent-' God's Terrible Advice to the City by Plague and Fire.'

general business of London to have regained much of its usual regularity, they dismissed the idea as impracticable, or as unworthy, and agreed not only that the church should be rebuilt, but, in December, 1670, that "young and old " would join heart and hand in expediting the work. The means at the disposal of the parishioners in this, as well as in the other parishes, were various, but chiefly a portion of the duty on coals, set apart by the parliament for the rebuilding of London and the churches, an assessment on the inhabitants, and voluntary subscriptions; the whole, however, in a great number of cases, insufficient, as we may well suppose, to admit of any rapid progress; and hence continual difficulties. At Allhallows they were so greatly at a loss at one period, that they endeavoured to raise 500l. upon their lands, but Sergeant Pemberton advised them that it could not be done without a decree of Chancery. From this position they were relieved apparently by the usual process, increased exertions on the part of benevolent individuals, for we find John Marsh, in 1693, lending them the exact sum stated. The year after 500l. was also raised by a parochial assessment. These notices are imperfect, but show sufficiently the general history of the rebuilding of Allhallows, which is but an epitome of the rebuilding of most of the other London churches.

In the foregoing passages we must also look for no unimportant part of the materials from which we are to estimate the architect's greatness. Without dwelling upon the multitude of Wren's avocations at this time-the cathedrals, palaces, government offices, hospitals, civic halls, colleges, &c. &c., he was erecting or repairing, and which make it wonderful that he could have contrived to give us so many beautiful churches in the City, rather than depreciatory of his fame, that he should also have added some that are very insignificant-passing by this consideration, which Wren barely needs, there is another, which it would be unjust to his memory not to lay some stress upon, the pecuniary difficulties above referred to, which must have hampered him at every step of his labours, and often have materially affected the design itself, which it was the object of those labours to carry into effect. In criticising therefore his works, it is sometimes more germane to the matter to speak of the design that the parochial purse approved of, rather than of his; to lament the absence of appropriate decoration there, rather than in his buildings. The church of St. Mary Aldermary offers a striking example of the importance of these pecuniary influences. Would you learn how it was that this building became erected on the expensive model of the former one, with its nave, and aisles, and clustered pillars, and surprisingly rich fan-groinings, not merely decorating but covering the ceilings, Malcolm will tell us that "Henry Rogers, Esq., influenced by sincere motives of piety, and affected with the almost irreparable loss of religious buildings, left the sum of 5000l. to rebuild a church in the city of London. His lady, who was executrix of the will, determined that St. Mary's should be that church." Then, again, churchwardens of that day, as of this, held their opinions with a pertinacity at least equal to their information, and, we may be sure, often plagued and occasionally thwarted the architect. To refer, for instance, again to Allhallows, we read in their parish books of Wren sending about a spire, but the parish, or its officers, seem to have preferred a tower-so a tower it is. Communications of a more agreeable nature, be it observed, occasionally passed, such for instance as

that referred to in the books of St. Clement's East Cheap, under the date of 1685,"To one-third of a hogshead of wine, given to Sir Christopher Wren, 41. 2s. Od.;" and that in the books of St. Mary Aldermanbury, 1673, April 10— "Having considered the kindness of Sir Christopher Wren and Mr. Robert Hooke (chief mason) in expediting the building of the church; and that they may be encouraged to assist in perfecting that work, it is now ordered that the parish, by the churchwardens, do present Sir C. Wren with 20 guineas, and Mr. R. Hooke with 10."

It was under the disadvantages referred to that Wren erected the structures which, as a whole, form the greatest monuments of his genius; for in them he appears as emphatically the inventor of a style of ecclesiastical architecture adapted to the wants of a Protestant community, to whose minds the older and, we may own, more beautiful Roman Catholic buildings were distasteful, from their connection with the faith from which they had only emancipated themselves after a long and bloody struggle. Of the exteriors of Wren's churches we have little to say, the principal spires and towers having been so completely shown by the design given in our first volume, in the Building of St. Paul's;' and, beyond the spires and towers, there being so little demanding observation. The confined and frequently obscure position of the buildings rendered it impossible that fine architectural exteriors could be adequately enjoyed, so the architect declined giving them, but, instead, concentrated his energies and skill in the parts exposed to observation, by their height, as in the campanuli, and in the interiors. Two external peculiarities, however, must not be overlooked-the original and picturesque manner in which he has applied ornamented details from the Italian to the forms of the Gothic, and the grace with which he has placed his spires on the supporting towers. As to his interiors, perhaps variety of plan is the most striking characteristic. Looking over the entire number of churches (fifty-three) erected by Wren in the metropolis,* we perceive they may be divided into three classes-the Domed; the Basilical (that is with nave and side-aisles divided by pillars from each other); and the Miscellaneous, consisting of some with single rectangular plans without columns, mere rooms, in short, apart from their decorations;-some with a single aisle, formed to conceal the intrusions of the lower part of the tower on that side of the church;-and some with pillars, disposed within the rectangular area, to give it the appearance of a cross. The churches of each of these classes are generally in the Roman style, but with some noticeable exceptions-as St. Mary, Aldermary, and St. Alban's, Wood-street, both of which belong to the Gothic-the latter, says Wren, " as the same was before the fire." We may here be permitted to pause a moment over one recollection of the old church of Mary Aldermary (that is Mary the elder of the churches so dedicated in London); Stow says that "Richard Chawcer, vintner, gave to that church his tenement and tavern, with the appurtenances in the Royal Street, the corner of Kirion Lane, and was there buried, 1348." He adds an explanatory marginal note, that this Richard was "father to Geoffrey Chaucer the poet, as may be supposed;" and we think with great probability, if it be remembered with what affection the latter always speaks of the City, and how closely he was connected

*That is, including two not burnt in the fire, as St. Andrew's, Holboru, and St. Clement Danes, and one new church, St. James, Westminster.