on to a much greater length, and would, we may be sure, be highly relished by all present, except, perhaps, as we have said, by any of the bishops, if they were there, who might consider it as rather personal.

The most remarkable occasion on which Ridley officiated at Paul's Cross, in this reign, was that on which the new service book was used for the first time. "The 1st of November 1552," says Stow, "being the feast of All Saints, the new service book, called of Common Prayer, began in Paul's Church, and the like through the whole city. The Bishop of London, Dr. Ridley, executing the service in Paul's Church in the forenoon, in his rochet only, without cope or vestment, preached in the choir; and at afternoon he preached at Paul's Cross, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and crafts in their best liveries being present; which sermon tending to the setting forth the said late-made Book of Common Prayer, continued till almost five of the clock at night; so that the mayor, aldermen, and companies entered not into Paul's Church, as had been accustomed, but departed home by torchlight." It was a zealous time, as well as an interesting occasion, when people could thus be detained hearing a sermon in the open air, in a noisome churchyard, till five o'clock on a night in November.

Another memorable Paul's Cross sermon of Ridley's was that which he preached, by command of the council, on Sunday, the 9th of July, 1553, a few days after the death of King Edward, warning the people of the dangers that would have followed the accession of Mary, and setting forth the title of Lady Jane Grey, at that moment regarded by his faction as the reigning queen. Lady Jane's government only lasted for another Sunday; and on that day, the 16th, the sermon at the Cross was preached by John Rogers, renowned as the first of Mary's martyrs, who was then reader of St. Paul's. According to Strype, Rogers was more wary than Ridley had been, preaching only upon the gospel of the day.t

As soon as Mary was fairly seated on the throne, the pulpit at St. Paul's Cross was once more taken possession of by the friends of the old religion. Here, on the 13th of August, a famous sermon was preached by Dr. Bourn, parson of High Ongar, in Essex, and chaplain to the queen, before the lord mayor and aldermen, the Lord Courteney, and a numerous audience of all classes. "This man," says Strype, "did, according to his instructions, fiercely lay about him, in accusing the doings of the former reign, with such reflections upon things that were dear to the people, that it set them all into a hurly-burly; and such an uproar began, such a shouting at the sermon, and casting up of caps, as that one who lived in those times, and kept a journal of matters that then fell out, writ, It was as if the people were mad; and that there might have been great mischief done, had not the people been awed somewhat by the presence of the mayor and Lord Courteney." At last a dagger was thrown at the preacher, which stuck in the pulpit; and then Rogers, who was present, and his friend Bradford, another eminent Protestant preacher, having interfered with some success to moderate the tumult, managed to convey Bourn away to a house in the neighbourhood.‡

* Annals.

† Memorials, iii. 3.-Stow, in his Annals, says that Ridley's sermon, wherein "he vehemently persuaded the people in the title of the Lady Jane, late proclaimed Queen, and inveighed earnestly against the title of Lady Mary," was preached on the 16th.

Burnet.-Fox.

On the next Sunday the sermon at Paul's Cross was preached by Dr. Watson, chaplain to Bishop Gardiner, guarded by two hundred of the Queen's guards; there being present, besides the lord mayor and aldermen, "all the crafts of London in their best liveries, sitting on forms, every craft by themselves.”* The change of doctrine does not appear to have diminished the attendance upon the sermons. After the parliament met in October, "the town," says Speed, "being full, care was taken to put up men of the greatest vogue to preach the Paul's Cross sermons. The 15th day Dr. White, warden of Winchester, preached there; the Sunday following, the 22nd day, Dr. Weston, dean of Westminster. And while these sermons were preaching, were great bars set up at every gate in Paul's Churchyard, to prevent the breaking in of horses and great throngs of people, for fear of disturbance while the sermons were preaching." Yet the post of preacher here still continued to be one of some danger. On the 10th of June, 1554, while Dr. Pendleton was preaching, between ten and eleven o'clock in the forenoon, a gun was fired at him, the tin bullet from which struck the wall a very little way over his head. Pendleton had been a zealous professor of the reformed doctrines in the late king's time.† On the 23rd of September, Dr. Rud, another apostate from Protestantism, appeared in the pulpit, who took the opportunity of making a frank profession of his change of sentiments, and particularly of telling the people how greatly he repented having taken a wife-of whom, however, he had of course by this time had the satisfaction of having got rid. On the next Sunday, the 30th, Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and Lord Chancellor, preached at the Cross; "which," says Strype, "he did with much applause, before an audience as great as ever was known, and among the rest all the council that were then at court." On the 14th of October we find it noted that the old Bishop of Durham, Tonstall, preached in the Shrowds, as we have seen was also done by old Latimer. On the 2nd of December another very illustrious congregation assembled to hear Gardiner preach at the Cross: Cardinal Pole "came from Lambeth by water, and landed at Paul's Wharf, and from thence to Paul's Church, with a cross, two pillars, and two pole-axes of silver borne before him ;" and about eleven o'clock, King Philip himself arrived by land from Westminster. On the 6th of February, 1558, another sermon of Gardiner's was attended by sixteen bishops, the lord mayor and aldermen, and many of the judges; and on the 20th of the same month, when Dr. Watson, Bishop of Lincoln, preached, "there were ten bishops present, besides the lord mayor and aldermen, judges and men of the law, and a great audience."§

But lord mayor, aldermen, judges, and bishops, were all soon after this obliged to suit themselves, as best they could, to another change. The breath had been only three days out of Mary's body, when on the 20th of November the pulpit at Paul's Cross was mounted by Dr. Bill, the new queen's chaplain, and made to resound once more with the doctrines formerly preached by Ridley

* Strype.

+ On Sunday, the 8th of April, this year, "a cat, with her head shorn, and the likeness of a vestment cast over her, with her fore feet tied together, and a round piece of paper like a singing cake betwixt them, was hanged on a gallows in Cheap, near to the Cross, in the parish of St. Matthew, which cat, being taken down, was carried to the Bishop of London (Bonnor), and he caused the same to be showed at Paul's Cross by the preacher, Dr. Pendleton."-Stow's Annals.

and Latimer. But the following curious passage from Stow's Annals, which has not been noticed by recent writers, shows that this alert commencement soon received a check:-"On Low Sunday, the 2nd of April (1559), Master Sampson, lately come from beyond the seas, made the rehearsal sermon at Paul's Cross; but, when the lord mayor and aldermen came to their places in Paul's Churchyard, the pulpit door was locked, and the key could not be heard of: whereupon the lord mayor sent for a smith to open the lock, which was done, and, when the preacher should enter the place, it was found very filthy and unclean; moreover, the verger, that had the key of the place where the bishops and prelates use to stand to hear the sermon, could not be found; whereupon certain gentlemen with a form broke open the door. This disorder chanced by reason that since Christmas last past there was not a sermon preached at Paul's Cross; for an inhibition had been sent from the council unto the Bishop of London, that he should admit no preacher, because of the controversy betwixt the bishops and them of the clergy that were new returned into the realm from beyond the seas." After this, however, Horne, Jewel, and other eminent divines of the re-established Protestant church, vindicated the new order of things at Paul's Cross; and the sermons delivered there every Sunday, as of old, appear to have been well attended throughout the reign of Elizabeth. Stow has described at great length the gorgeous state in which her Majesty, attended by the Earl of Essex and a great number of ladies of honour, came from Somerset House to the Cathedral on the 24th of November, 1588, to hear the thanksgiving sermon for the destruction of the Spanish Armada, preached at the Cross by Doctor Pierce, bishop of Salisbury: she took her seat in a closet made for the purpose in the north wall of the church, over against the Cross. On the 17th of November (1595), the same chronicler records, "the pulpit cross in Paul's Churchyard was new repaired, painted, and partly enclosed with a wall of brick; Dr. Fletcher, bishop of London, preached there, in praise of the queen and prayer for her majesty, before the lord mayor, aldermen, and citizens in their best liveries. Which sermon being ended, upon the church leads the trumpets sounded, the cornets winded, and the quiristers sung an anthem; on the steeple many lights were burned; the Tower shot off her ordnance, the bells were rung, bonfires made, &c." The next year, while the lord mayor and aldermen were attending a sermon here, an order came to them from the queen for a levy of a thousand able-bodied men to assist in raising the siege of Calais, then besieged by the Spaniards; upon which, we are told, they immediately quitted their devotions, and exerted themselves so actively, that they had the thousand men in readiness for marching before morning.

Nor was the glory of Paul's Cross over till many years after this date. James I. came in great state on horseback, from Whitehall, to hear a sermon preached from this famous pulpit by Dr. John King, Bishop of London, on Midlent Sunday, the 26th of March, 1628. And Pennant is mistaken in supposing this was the last sermon ever preached here. It was not even the last attended by royalty; for, on the 30th of May, 1630, Charles I., like his two predecessors, also came in state to St. Paul's, and, after having attended the service in the cathedral, took his seat in a place prepared for him, and heard the sermon at the

Cross.*

But this was very nearly the last of those sermons delivered in the open air. In April, 1633, while the cathedral was undergoing extensive repairs, and the churchyard was occupied with masons and building materials, the sermons were removed into the choir; and it does not appear that the old pulpit out of doors was ever again occupied. At last, by the votes of both Houses of the Long Parliament, on the 10th and 11th of September, 1642, for the abolishing of bishops, deans, and chapters, "the very foundation of this famous cathedral," to quote the impressive words of its historian," was utterly shaken in pieces; ... so that the next year following, 1643 (Isaac Penington being Lord Mayor), the famous Cross in the churchyard, which had been for many ages the most noted and solemn place in this nation for the gravest divines and greatest scholars to preach at, was, with the rest of the crosses about London and Westminster, by further order of the said parliament, pulled down to the ground."+

* Continuation of Stow's Annals.-There is a sermon in print, entitled "The White Wolf; preached at Paul's Cross, February 11, 1627, by Stephen Denison, Minister of Katherine Cree Church." Dugdale's History of St. Paul's Cathedral, p. 109; edit. of 1818.

ground in London, it is this. Standing upon the foot of that bridge which has replaced the venerable piece of antiquity so connected with the local history of Southwark, and looking forwards into the mass of human dwellings beyond, what a host of recollections of some of the mightiest intellects of our own

F