Wax Chandler's Company; he asserted the right of sanctuary, and made the processions as magnificent as ever. It was but for a brief period. Mary died, and Elizabeth restored in effect the Cathedral foundation of her father, with the exception of the bishopric. William Bill was the new Dean. Among his successors have been Lancelot Andrews; Williams, who took so active, and to the court unpalatable, a part in the great revolution, during which time the Abbey was several times attacked by the mob, and considerable injury done; Atterbury, the literary friend of Pope, who was so deeply implicated in the conspiracies against George I., and in consequence deprived of his dignities and banished; Pearce, Horsley, &c.

The nave and choir, with the monuments therein, are open to the public; the chapels and other parts are shown on the payment of a fee

XI. ST. PAUL'S,

OLD SAINT PAUL'S.

A FEW years ago, it seems, a tree grew, but even that no longer marks the spot, where stood of old the famous PAUL'S CROSS, towards the eastern extremity of the vacant space on the north side of the Cathedral. The greater part of this space appears to have been a burying-ground, and no doubt the chief one belonging to the City, from the most ancient times-from the erection of the first sacred edifice, whether Christian church or heathen temple, on the mount now crowned by St. Paul's, or possibly from the origin of London itself. Sir Christopher Wren, who dug deep into all parts of the ground in laying the foundations of the present cathedral, discovered no indications to confirm the tradition that the site had been originally occupied by a temple of Jupiter or Diana: the precious fragments of bucks' horns, ox-heads, and boars' tusks, that had so charmed the antiquaries, had all disappeared, or become transmuted, like fairy coin, into much more worthless ware-into bits of wood and shreds of pottery. But he found under the choir of the old building a presbyterium, or semicircular chancel, of Roman architecture-a structure of Kentish rubble-stone, cemented with their inimitable mortar-which proved that the first Christian church had been the work of the Roman colonists; and he also clearly ascertained that the northern part of the churchyard had been a depository for the dead from the Roman and British times. Layer upon layer, there they lay-and still lie-the successive possessors of the land; uppermost, the graves of later generations; next under them, our Saxon forefathers from the days of Ethelbert and St. Austin, some more honourably and securely entombed within sarcophagi formed of great upright and horizontal flags, most embedded in cavities lined with chalk-stones-in either ease the one enclosure serving for both grave and coffin; then, the Britons of the period between the departure of the Romans and the establishment of the Saxons, their dust mixed with great numbers of ivory and box-wood pins, about six inches long, the fastenings apparently of the now mouldered shrouds in which the bodies had once been wrapped; and, lowest of all, eighteen feet or more below the surface, other remains such as these last, but interspersed with fragments of Roman urns, revealing the burial-place of "the colony when Romans and Britons lived and died together."

The first cathedral was erected in the beginning of the sixth century, although the disturbed state of the country, and the unsettled standing of the faith itself, did not at first permit much expenditure of time or money in its adornment. Erkenwald, the son of King Offa, the fourth bishop from Melitus, was the first to supply the deficiencies. He not only procured privileges from the reigning kings of England, and from the Pope, but spent a considerable portion of his own estate in adding to the funds provided for the improvement of the fabric. Among other and subsequent benefactors may be enumerated Kenred, King of the Mercians; Athelstan, who endowed it with numerous lordships; Edgar and his Queen, Ethelred; Canute, and the pious Confessor. Then came the Conquest; and during the short struggle that preceded William's coronation as King of England, rude hands laid hold of some of its possessions; but the politic Norman had not come to war with the Church; so St. Paul's had everything restored, and received at the same time a charter from the hands

of the King, dated the very day of his coronation, conferring the whole of its property to it in perpetuity. The Conqueror added his benedictions to all who should augment the revenues, and his curses on those who should diminish them.

During this reign the church was burnt, and a new one commenced by Bishop Maurice towards the close of the eleventh century. We need hardly observe that, since the erection of the previous edifice, architecture had made a great advance. Westminster Abbey (the Confessor's building) had just been erected; Lincoln was now in progress of erection by the able and indefatigable Remigius. The eminent ecclesiastics of that day appear to have been inspired with a noble spirit of emulation, each striving to outstrip his fellows in raising those architectural wonders which we gaze on with admiration and awe, but seem unable to rival, or even finely to imitate. In the same fire that burnt St. Paul's, the castle known as the Palatine Tower had suffered. In consequence, the materials were placed at Maurice's disposal. He now laid out his plan and began the foundations, which were designed for so extensive and magnificent a structure, that the good bishop could have hardly hoped to live to see the whole finished. But, in the language of Wordsworth—

So Maurice went patiently and courageously on for the twenty years he lived, and then left the completion as a noble bequest to his successors. William of Malmesbury about this time describes the church as being "so stately and beautiful that it was worthily numbered among the most famous buildings." Maurice was succeeded by Richard de Beaumeis, of whose character it may be sufficient to adduce one illustration he bestowed the entire revenues of his bishopric on the edifice, and maintained himself and family by other means. His share of the work seems to have been the completion of the walls, enlarging the exterior space by the purchase and pulling down of houses that encumbered the pile, and the erection of a strong wall of enclosure, which extended as far as Paternoster Row and Ave Maria Lane on one side, and to Old Change, Carter Lane, and Creed Lane, on the other. Scarcely, however, does the entire edifice seem to have been completed before architecture had again made such progress, that a work a century old was no longer able to satisfy our magnificent-minded churchmen. As we find Henry III., through a considerable portion of his reign, pulling down and rebuilding the Confessor's erection at Westminster, so do we find his subjects in various places imitating his example, and more particularly at St. Paul's. In 1221 a new steeple was finished, and in 1240 a new choir. This was dedicated in the presence of Henry, attended by Otto, the Pope's legate, and the most eminent of the English ecclesiastics. The mode in which the money was obtained for these works is an interesting part of the history of Old St. Paul's. The prime mover in and skilful designer of the whole business was Bishop Roger, surnamed Niger. Having no king or other great benefactor to depend upon, he formed the determination of obtaining what he wanted from the people of England and Ireland. Accordingly he induced the general body of British bishops to issue letters to the clergy and others under their jurisdiction, granting indulgences for a certain number of days to all those who, having penance to perform, and, being penitent, should assist the new work. Dugdale speaks of seeing, a multitude of such letters written at the period and for the edifice in question. How cheerfully the people answered this and similar appeals we perceive in the completion, not only of the works mentioned, but of the addition of an entirely new portion to the east end, including the subterranean church of St. Faith, which was begun, in 1256, by Fulco Basset, the then bishop.