Music," written for the anniversary of St. Cecilia, which was annually celebrated by the stationers. "Towards the end of the seventeenth century, an entertainment was instituted on the 22nd of November, in commemoration of St. Cecilia, by many of the first rank in the kingdom, which was continued annually for a considerable time. A splendid entertainment was provided at Stationers' Hall, which was preceded by a performance of vocal and instrumental music, by the most capital performers." This feast is represented by Motteux, in 1691, as one of the genteelest in the world: there are no formalities or gatherings, as at others, and the appearance there is splendid." The verses, which were always an encomium on St. Cecilia, were set by Purcell, Blow, and other musicians of the greatest eminence; and it became the fashion for writers of all ranks, to celebrate St. Cecilia. Besides the odes to her by Dryden and Pope, Addison and Yalden employed their talents on the subject. We have also odes to St. Cecilia by Shadwell, D'Urfey, and some still more indifferent poets. The last account discovered of any entertainment at Stationers' Hall, is when Hughes altered Dryden's ode for the occasion in 1703. The festivity appears also to have been kept at Oxford, and to have been continued there longer.

CHAPTER VIII.

St. Paul's Cathedral-Some account of the old church-The Lollards' Tower there-Murder committed by a churchman-Illustrious men buried in the old church; their mean tombs-Anecdote of Dr. Donne -Magnificence of the high altar and the shrines-Costly offerings of King John of France and others Indulgence of forty days-Singular offering— Mysteries acted by the boys of St. Paul's School-The Boy Bishop-St. Faith, under St. Paul's-The Great Bell of St. Paul's-Frequenters of Paul's Walk-Eminent persons buried there-The citation of Wickliffe, and riots in consequence-Paul's Cross-City magistrates formerly elected there, and public meetings held-Some account of Jane Shore; does penance there-The Pope attacked there in sermons, by order of Henry VIII.-Successive preachers there during the reigns of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth-Devotions stopped for a sudden levy of men -Last sermon preached there-London House-Pardon-Church-Haugh; the Dance of Death painted in the cloister of-Windmill Hill-The new Cathedral of St. Paul's-Difficulties of Sir Christopher Wren with the Commissioners appointed by the Government-Public monuments in the Cathedral.

We now arrive at St. Paul's Cathedral, the grandest and most magnificent building in the metropolis, and sacred to all British hearts, for many reasons. The following particulars, relative to the old cathedral, destroyed in the fire of London, are chiefly gathered from Stow and Pennant, who have said nearly all that is worth recording upon the subject. We shall ourselves speak of the new building, and the various associations connected with the classic ground of the surrounding neighbourhood.

The first church is supposed to have been destroyed in the Diocletian persecution, and to have been rebuilt in the reign of Constantine. This was again demolished by the pagan Saxons, and restored in 603, by Sebert, a petty prince, ruling in these parts, under Ethelbert, king of Kent, the first Christian monarch of the Saxon race; who, at the instance of St. Augustine, appointed Melitus the first Bishop of London. Erkenwald, the son of King Offa, fourth in succession from Melitus, ornamented his cathedral very highly, and improved the revenues with his own patrimony. When the great part of the city of London was destroyed by fire in 1086, this church was burnt. Bishop Mauritius began to rebuild it, and laid the foundations, which remained till its second destruction, from the same cause, in the seventeenth century. Notwithstanding Mauritius lived twenty years after he had begun this pious work, and Bishop Beauvages

enjoyed the see twenty more, yet such was the grandeur of the design, that it remained unfinished. The first had the ruins of the Palatine tower bestowed on him, as materials for the building; and Henry I. bestowed on Beauvages, part of the ditch belonging to the Tower, which, with purchases made by himself, enabled him to inclose the whole with a wall. The same monarch granted besides, that every ship which brought stone for the church, should be exempted from toll; he gave him also all the great fish taken in his precincts, except the tongues; and lastly, he secured to him and his successor the delicious tithes of all his venison in the county of Essex.

The steeple was finished in 1221. The noble subterraneous church of St. Faith, Ecclesia Sanctæ Fidis in cryptis, was begun in 1257. It was supported by three rows of massy clustered pillars, with ribs diverging from them to support the solemn roof. This was the parish church. The undercroft, as these sort of buildings were called, had in it several chantries and monuments. Henry Lacie, earl of Lincoln, who died in 1312, made what was called the new work at the east end, in which was the chapel of our Lady, and that of St. Dunstan.

The chapter house, adjoining the south transept, was circular, and supported by four central pillars of more elegant gothic than the rest of the building. This projected into a most beautiful cloister, two stories high. On the walls was painted the Machabre, or dance of death, a common subject in religious places. It represented a long train of men of all orders, from the pope to the lowest of human beings; each figure has death as his partner, shaking his remembering hour-glass. cloister, the dance, and several fine monuments, were demolished by the Protector Somerset, when he was erecting his palace in the Strand.

This

Farther to the west, adjoining to the south side, was the parish church of St. Gregory. In one of the towers which ornamented the western front, was the bishops' prison, or Lollards' tower; the scene, says Pennant, of many a midnight murder.

One Richard Hunn, committed there in 1514, was most foully murdered, being hanged there by the contrivance of Horsey, the chancellor of the diocese, who pretended this unfortunate man had been guilty of suicide, and buried his body ignominiously. However, though the coroner's inquest detected the murderers, they were defended by the Bishop Fitz-James. Still, the king interfered, and ordered the chancellor Horsey and his accomplices to pay the children of the deceased fifteen hundred pounds.

Whether this was actually paid is not mentioned; however, the murderers escaped with a pardon.

The style of the ancient cathedral was a most beautiful gothic; over the east end was an elegant circular window. The ancient plans do not deliver down to us the forms of the two transepts. The dimensions of the whole, in 1309, were these: the length 629 feet; the breadth 120; the height of the roof of the west part from the floor, 102; of the tower, 260; of the east part, 188; of the spire made of wood, covered with lead, 274. The whole space occupied by the old church was three acres and a half, one rood and a half, and six perches.

The nave was supported by clustered pillars and round arches, in the style preserved by the Normans after the conquered Saxons. The galleries and windows of the transepts were also finished with rounded arches. The screen to the choir, and the chapel of the Virgin, were gothic; the former was ornamented with statues on each side of the door, at the expense of Sir Paul Pindar.

Sir Philip Sydney, whose remains were brought to St. Paul's in 1586 with great magnificence, had no other monument than a board with a most wretched inscription. The great Walsingham's remains were, in a manner, stolen into his grave here by his friends, for fear of an arrest. And after particularizing many illustrious persons buried in the ancient church, Pennant concludes with the melancholy corpse of Doctor Donne, the wit of his time, standing in a niche, and wrapped in a shroud gathered about his head, with his feet resting on an urn. Not long before his death, he dressed himself in that funereal habit, placed his feet on an urn fixed on a board exactly of his own height, and, shutting his eyes like a departed person, was drawn in that attitude by a skilful painter. This gloomy piece he kept in his room till the day of his death, on March 31, 1631; after which it served as a pattern for his tomb.

The high altar dazzled with gems and gold, the gifts of its numerous votaries. John, king of France, when prisoner in England, first paying his respects to St. Erkenwald's shrine, offered four basins of gold; and the gifts at the obsequies of princes, foreign and British, were of immense value. On the day of the conversion of the tutelar saint, the charities were prodigious, first to the souls, when an indulgence of forty days' pardon was given, vere pœnitentibus, contritis et confessis: and by order of Henry III., 1500 tapers were placed in the church, and 15,000 poor people fed in the churchyard.

But the most singular offering was that of a fat doe in winter and a buck in summer, made at the high altar, on the day of the commemoration of the saint, by Sir William de Baude and his family, and then to be distributed among the canons resident. This was in lieu of twenty-two acres of land in Essex, which belonged to the canons of this church. Till Queen Elizabeth's time, the doe or buck was received solemnly at the altar by the dean and chapter, attired in their sacred vestments, and crowned with garlands of roses. Mr. Warton says, the body of the buck was sent to be baked; but the head being fixed on a pole, the procession issued out at the west door, where the keeper that brought it blowed the death, and then the horners all about the city were fain to answer him; for which each man received from the dean and chapter four-pence in money and their dinner, while the keeper that brought it was allowed his meat and drink, and five shillings in money; and on going away he received a loaf of bread, having the picture of St. Paul upon it.

The boys of St. Paul's used also to act mysteries, or holy plays; and so jealous were they of this privilege, that they petitioned Richard II. to prohibit some ignorant and inexperienced persons from acting the history of the Old Testament to the prejudice of the church. Even Dean Colet countenanced these mummeries, by enjoining his scholars to attend the boy-bishop at Paul's every Childermas-day. This prelate in miniature used to preach, and receive his offerings of a penny from each person. Sometimes they sang indecent songs, and danced and committed the most disgusting profanations. In France, an act of the parliament of Rheims put an end to them; in England, the Reformation abolished these impieties with others.

But so many were the lurking-places about this cathedral and cloisters, that to prevent the commission of robberies, and even murders, Edward I. gave permission to the dean and chapter to inclose the whole with a wall, and to have gates to shut of a night, to exclude disorderly people. Within these walls, on the north-west side, was the bishop's palace, that is to say, upon the spot called London House Yard, now a passage from St. Paul's Churchyard to Paternoster Row.

St. Faith's, under St. Paul's, according to a vulgar notion, is actually a church complete in all its parts, with doors, windows, roof, steeple, organ, pews,-nay, parson and clerk, and beadle too, under St. Paul's. It is, however, nothing more than the vault under the choir, and which, before the great fire, was the parish church of St. Faith. It is about seventeen feet below the