house in Bishopsgate Street, where we have still preserved a most rich and unique specimen of the ancient domestic architecture of the metropolis. Sir Peter was one of the wealthiest, and, it is pleasant to add, one of the most munificent-minded men of his time: his splendid benefactions to Old St. Paul's will, no doubt, be recollected by our readers. Many instances of the same spirit in lesser matters may be found in the books of the parish. One of the most amusing is the pasty (a yearly gift apparently) which he gave to the parishioners in 1634; we may judge of its size when we find that 19s. 7d. was paid for the mere "flour, butter, pepper, eggs, making, and baking." We may add, from the same books, another notice to those already given in our preceding articles, of the pleasant way in which parish affairs were formerly managed. In 1578, we find, "paid for frankincense and flowers, when the Chancellor sate with us," 11s. In the churchyard there is a tomb inscribed with Persian characters, of which Stow gives the following account: "August 10, 1626. In Petty France [a part of the cemetery unconsecrated], out of Christian burial, was buried Hodges Shaughsware, a Persian merchant, who with his son came over with the Persian ambassador, and was buried by his own son, who read certain prayers, and used other ceremonies, according to the custom of their own country, morning and evening, for a whole month after the burial; for whom is set up, at the charge of his son, a tomb of stone with certain Persian characters thereon: the exposition thus-This grave is made for Hodges Shaughsware, the chiefest servant to the King of Persia for the space of 20 years, who came from the King of Persia and died in his service. If any Persian cometh out of that country, let him read this and a prayer for him, the Lord receive his soul, for here lieth Maghmote Shaughsware, who was born in the town Novoy, in Persia."* There is something affecting in the allusion to a chance visitor from the far-distant country;-one of those touches of nature that make the wide world kin,-a desire on the part of the bereaved son to find some chance-even the remotest-that his father's ashes should be hallowed by human sympathy. In the churchyard of St. George, in the Borough, rebuilt 1731, lies Bishop Bonner, who died in the neighbouring prison of the Marshalsea in 1569, whither he was committed by Elizabeth for his refusal to take the oath of supremacy. An anecdote is told of him, at the period of his committal, which shows his temper in a more favourable light than his public conduct would lead us to anticipate. On his way to the prison, one called out "The Lord confound or else turn thy heart!" Bonner coolly replied, "The Lord send thee to keep thy breath to cool thy porridge." To another, who insulted him on his deprivation from the episcopal rank, he could even be witty. "Good morrow, Bishop quondam," was the attack: "Farewell, knave semper," was the reply. Shoreditch was rebuilt about 1731 by the elder Dance; St. Botolph's, Aldgate, originally given by the descendants of the thirteen knights forming the Knighten Guild to the Priory of Trinity, in 1741; St. Mary, Whitechapel, in 1764; and St. Alphage or Elphege, one of the churches that escaped the fire, in 1777. The porch of St. Alphage, with its sculptured heads and pointed arches, is, however, no production of the eighteenth century, but a remnant of the old Elsing Priory. Among the registers of this church we find a

* Stow, 'Survey,' ed. 1633, p. 173.

record of those that have certified they have been touched by his Majesty for the evil, an occupation that must have accorded but ill with the other modes adopted for the disposal of time by Charles II. But the number of persons thus operated upon is not the least extraordinary part of the affair; about forty in this one parish in the course of a few years: multiply this by any reasonable number that shall be thought sufficient to include all the other parishes of England in proportion to their size and distance, and the product is startling. No wonder that it became necessary to regulate such proceedings by public proclamation, or Charles would have found that, in his willingness to affect the saint, he would be leaving himself no time to practise the sinner. The following bears date May 18, 1664: "His sacred Majesty having declared it to be his royal will and purpose to continue the healing of his people for the evil during the month of May, and then give over till Michaelmas next, I am commanded to give notice thereof, that the people may not come up to the town in the interim and lose their labour." The foundation of this church, like that of the old church at Greenwich, was probably intended to mark the public feeling as to the memorable event that closed the personal history of St. Elphege. At the time Canterbury was besieged by the Danes under Thurkill, in 1011, he was archbishop, and distinguished himself by the courage with which he defended that city for twenty days against their assaults. Treachery, however, then opened the gates, and Elphege having been made prisoner was loaded with chains, and treated with the greatest severity in order to make him follow the example of his worthless sovereign Ethelred, and purchase an ignominious liberty by gold. Greenwich at that time formed the Danish head-quarters, whither the archbishop was conveyed. Here he was tempted by the offer of a lower rate of ransom; again and again was he urged to yield by every kind of threat and solicitation: "You press me in vain,” was the noble Saxon's reply; "I am not the man to provide Christian flesh for Pagan teeth, by robbing my poor countrymen to enrich their enemies." At last, the patience of the Danes was worn out: so one day (the 19th of April, 1012) they sent for him to a banquet, when their blood was inflamed by wine, and on his appearance saluted him with tumultuous cries of "Gold! gold! Bishop, give us gold, or thou shalt to-day become a public spectacle." Calm and unmoved, Elphege gazed on the circle of infuriate men, who hemmed him in, and who presently began to strike him with the flat sides of their battle-axes, and to fling at him the bones and horns of the oxen, that had been slain for the feast. And thus he would have been slowly murdered, but for one Thrum, a Danish soldier, who had been converted by Elphege, and who now in mercy smote him with the edge of his weapon, when he fell dead. A church was subsequently erected to his memory over the fatal spot, and another in London-probably at the same period-the church which led to this brief account of a very interesting historical passage.

After the erection of such of the fifty churches as were erected, and the rebuilding, as we have just seen, of some of the older ones, there was a remarkable pause during the long period extending from the commencement of the reign of George III. down almost to its close there were not (including St. Alphage and St. Mary, Whitechapel) six churches erected in the metropolis. In an architectural point of view this was fortunate. The Italian-Roman school had

been fairly put before the public, and there required time to come to a right understanding of its comparative merits with the Gothic, which it superseded here, and the purer Grecian and Roman schools, on which it had raised itself at home. The general character of the numerous new churches that now meet us on every side in the metropolis, the growth of the last twenty-five years, speaks emphatically that the decision has been unfavourable. It was again fortunate that after such a period the more eminent architects who assumed the responsible position of erecting buildings that, from their very character as well as from their metropolitan position, should always be the best the state of the art can furnish, did not attempt originality, till they had purified their own and the public tastes, by familiarity with the long misunderstood and misused works of antiquity. There can be nothing more certain in art of any kind, than that every permanent advance must be based on a thorough appreciation of the excellence that has gone before. Invaluable, therefore, were the variety of buildings erected in the early part of the present century, in which the Grecian orders, the Doric and Ionic, were introduced; though no doubt there was plenty of room for improvement in the mode of the introduction. It is in this light that the beautiful church of St. Pancras, New Road, appears with even greater interest than its exquisite columns and doors alone could give it. This was finished in 1822; the architects were Messrs. W. and H. Inwood, men who had evidently drunk deep at the undefiled well of Athenian architecture. Their building is an avowed imitation of the famous temple of Erechtheion at Athens, one of the most florid existing specimens of the Ionic order. Here we began to learn, for the first time, what absurdities had been committed under the shelter of great names. The doors in the portico were now found to be an essential beauty of the latter, instead of standing out in barbarous discrepancy with it: but then they were very different doors from those of St. Martin's in the Fields, and St. George's, Bloomsbury, being, at the time of their introduction, perfectly unique in England for beauty. We now found, too, that the Greeks had been able to erect a body to their fronts, not simply harmonising with, but so essentially forming a part of it, that it is only wonderful they should ever have been divided. And how perfectly beautiful that body is, with its windows, and sculptured band, and cornice, and rich antefixæ studding as with fret-work the line of roof, and so finely relieved against the sky! Other interesting features of the exterior are the two projecting porches at the eastern extremity of the north and south sides, also imitated from a building attached to one side only of the Athenian temple, and called the Pandrosium. This is supported by caryatidal female figures, an exceedingly striking and expressive architectural feature. The origin of the use of such figures is attributed, with great probability of correctness, to the custom that prevailed among the Athenian virgins, of carrying on their heads the sacred vessels used in their religious ceremonies. In the Pandrosium there were six figures, at St. Pancras there are but four on each range, and they form the chief exception to the general excellence of execution visible through all the details of the church. Here is a drawing of one of the original figures now forming a part of the invaluable treasures of the British Museum. Within each porch a large sarcophagus expresses its purpose -it is the entrance to the catacombs, which are very spacious. The steeple is imitated from another Grecian work, the Temple of Winds, at Athens, but

Judging by analogy really surprising to

combines happily with the other parts of the exterior. from the buildings of the last century, where it is observe how seldom it was attempted to have the Within and the Without in harmony of richness and decoration, we should be little prepared for the interior of St. Pancras; but the all-pervading feeling of the truest artists (with one noticeable exception in later times, the Gothic) that the world ever saw, is so powerfully impressed on their buildings, that beauty prepares you for beauty, and you are never disappointed. The galleries of St. Pancras are, of course, the same as usual-however skilfully adapted to the building, excrescences; but the exquisite form of those columns that support them, give the eye pleasanter occupation than to dwell on defects, and when we learn their history we are not surprised: they are taken from casts of the Elgin marbles. On the remaining features of interest in St. Pancras, the range of verd-antique columns with bases and capitals of white marble (from the temple of Minerva) over the communion-table, the ground-glass windows with their

richly-stained borders, the pulpit and reading-desk, constructed, as we are told, out of the celebrated Fairlop Oak, our space will not permit us to dwell. From the foregoing description our readers will be prepared to hear that the cost was considerable, namely, 76,6791. 7s. 8d. Of the later works in the same style of architecture, the little chapel of St. Mark, North Audley Street, finished in 1828, deserves especial commendation for its departure from the frigid commonplace imitations which most of these buildings exhibit. The chaste elegance of the still more recently erected building here shown, needs no eulogy. It is by Professor Hosking, of King's College.

[Trinity Chapel, Poplar.]

There is one point of view in which these revolutions of taste that mark the present and last two centuries, appear peculiarly striking. A nation, among its other priceless bequests to posterity, leaves a perfect system of architecture; that system is taken up by another great nation, men of the highest intellectual power adapt it to their national views and habits, and add a second system scarcely less essentially original in any practical meaning of the word, to the world's artistical wealth. Now, is it not strange that after all the skill, learning, enthusiasm and treasure expended in altering, adapting, or improving these two