hum and trembling knell, I said, 'I lie in the shadow of St. Paul's.' ... The next day I awoke, and saw the risen sun struggling throu

I had a sudden feeling as if I, who had never yet truly lived, were at last about to taste

how sh

ult magicia

space of h

, dimly re

pon ethe

the city rides.

s than this. Even to dwellers in the West-End, inexperienced in City life, that guardian spirit of the mother-church, brooding silently over the far-off, dimly-imagined heart of the City, is a vital part-a necessary factor-of London life. The mighty smoke-begrimed cathedral, the monument of Wren's gen

ing C

n startling completeness immediately overhead, towering with almost night-mare like rapidity ever higher as we advance. Seen behind the tall white buildings and shops of its so-called "churchyard," that hem it in, St. Paul's makes an impression that is indescribably grand.

-work was not rewarded, like Milton's, with "twenty pounds paid in instalments, and a near approach to death on the gallows," yet he, too, had but scant justice in his day. National benefits, even in our own time, are often but ill rewarded. Thwarted, wretchedly paid, suspected, and finally, at great age, and after forty-five years' hard s

's from

ned the safety of its walls. Such, indeed was the devastation of this terrible holocaust, that even to this day, its relics and débris may be traced in distinct thin layers, at certain distances under the soil, all over the area of the City. The ruin can hardly be imagined, even from Pepys's and Evelyn's vivid diaries. Small wonder indeed, that it should be thought by the credulous that the end of the world, the Last Judgment, had truly come. Some, later, held that the "purification" of the old church by fire had been the one thing needed after its desecration in the Commonwealth times to a house of traffic and merchandize, even sometimes to a stable. The church had become a mere promenade; "Paul's Walkers" had been the names given to

lled upon to rebuild from the very foundations, Wren "resolved to reconcile as near as possible the Gothic with a better manner of architecture;" and, without ever having seen St. Peter's, he produced what is really an adaptation of that central Renaissance building of Christianity. It is much smaller: St. Paul's could go easily inside St. Peter's; yet, in the position it occupies, hemmed in by streets and houses, it looks deceptively much bigger. There is a pleasant story t

ntentions regarding the details of the edifice, thwarted in his lifetime by ignorant contemporaries, have now been carried out. Thus, the organ has been moved from its former place over the iron-wrought screen between choir and nave, (where it marred the architectural effect of the edifice), to the north-east arch of the choir, the position originally planned for it by Wren; the tall outside railing of the churchyard, which, Wren said, dwarfed the base of the cathedral, has been remov

ugh that very blackness. It has been said, wittily, that the great church has a special claim to its livery of smoke, for the reason that a great part of the cost of its building was defrayed

this effect of St. Paul's in the very heart and densest tumult of London. It is much better

monuments for some years, the first admitted to it being that of John Howard the philanthropist in 1790. This was followed by many othe

Joshua Reynolds's statue, by Flaxman, is here, and Reynolds himself lies buried here; and Barry, and Opie, and

in St. Paul's. His representation, in the curious art of the time, as a half-clothed muscular athlete, is appropriately supplemented by that of Howard, bare-legged, with Roman toga and tunic. The coincidence of Johnson holding a scroll, and Howard a prison key, has caused the two to be sometimes mistaken by visitors for St. Peter and St. Paul! But not all the monumental vagaries are as innocuous as these. Westminster Abbey does not alone suffer from the

ntles.... When churchmen declared themselves satisfied, the ladies thought they might venture to draw near, but the flutter of fans and the averting of faces was prodigious. That Victory, a modest and well-draped dame,

re-like in size, apparently confirming two Indian dwarf

f the nave, is the noble monument of the Duke of Wellington, by Alfred Stevens; the aged Duke lying, "lik

aming London'

d of those h

of those he

his bones f

art, is by Brock. The beautiful features of the dead President are composed in a sublime peace; he "is not dead, but sleepeth"; "yet it is visibly a sleep that shall know no ending, till the last day break, and the last shadow flee away." The long robe droops to the feet, the hands that toiled unweariedly for beauty

his heart to God" is fitly remembered in death. When I last saw this monument, on the hero's breast lay a fresh bunch of violets, on his either side were the symbolic palm branches, and at his feet a wreath of white flowers. Near

s, like all innovations in this ungrateful city, have, of course, run the gauntlet of abuse, on the ground of smallness and ineffectiveness; yet the Monreale mosaics, so admired at Palermo, are more or les

and a noisy street-organ, playing near Queen Anne's statue, mingles its note strangely with the cathedral's still pealing bells. The pigeons, gay in colour, flit down from their homes in among the blackened garlands, Corinthian capitals, and pediments; it is a strange and a motley scene. And, down at the bottom of the great flight of steps that lead from the western portico, the Twentieth-century visitor will now see a ne

o give a deeper meaning to the royal triumph; and black-skinned soldiers and yellow, and the fine representatives of the Indian warrior races. Generals and statesmen went by, and a glittering cavalcade of English and Continental princes, and the whole procession was a preparation-for what? A carriage at last, containing a quiet-looking old lady, in dark and simple attire; and at every point where this carriage pa

oman simplicity, into the br

UEEN V

ED THA

TY GOD

TH ANN

R ACC

2, a.d

-will these words, I wonder, be read,-the distan

the stormy sea, broken, at intervals, by a shriek from that most picturesque of railways, the iron "Bridge of Steam," that, ever and anon, emits a puff of smoke and a red spark into the general "fermenting-vat," the ingulfing vortex of life and energy below. For this is the roaring Niagara of London, the loom of

d, this is the place where I should like to live,' he would say." He was also fond of looking at London from the bridges over the Thames, and of going into St. Paul's, and into the Abbey. One day in 1842 Fitzgerald records a visit to St

's, Paterno

esidences opening out of it,-what a change! Here, in Amen Court, entered by a pleasant, sober red-brick gateway, Canon Liddon's last days were spent; here are quiet, old-fashioned houses looking, in summer, on to green plots and refreshing shrubs. All this seclusion, and yet the very heart of London! Warwick Square, close by, is a haven of another sort; a stony square set round with tall offices; roomy houses, perhaps formerly residential mansions, with here and there an attractively carved antique porch, or other relic of the past. It was under a house in this square, in rebuilding, that various Roman remains were recently found. In Paternoster Row, at the corner of "Chapter-house Court," was, in old days, the "Chapter" Coffee House, where the old medical club of the "Wittenagemot" was held, and wher

"Panyers," of the fourteenth century. Here, built into the wall of a modern house and nearly oblitera

Ye hav

itty

till

ghest

st t

88

se," removed in 1883. The views obtained of the Cathedr

her point I can call to mind. It would make a fine dreamy picture, as we saw it one moonlight night, with some belated creatures resting against the walls

evived by Wesley and Whitefield; and, even in our own day, an open-air pulpit is used, in summer, at Trinity Church, Marylebone Road, and largely attended, as any one who passes by Portland Road Station on Sunday afternoon may see for himself. Public confession for crime was also made at "Paul's Cross," and Jane Shore did penance here, as described by Sir Thomas More. East of St. Paul's, where now a line of tall warehouses rises, was, until 1884, St. Pau

orth porch, an inscription on a tablet, perpetuating the memory of the great builder, "in four words which comprehend his merit and his fame:" "Si monumentum requiris, circumspice." (If thou seekest his monument, look around.) "The visitor," says Leigh Hunt, "does look around, a

ledge of learning meet for the people, wise and eloquent in their instructions.... All these were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of their times. There be of them, that have left a name behin