its design; the difficulties its architect had to struggle with, from the malevolence of enemies, the coldness of friends, and the unappreciating spirit of his age; and to record the names of the illustrious men who, with its founder, have their monuments within its walls. A mere sketch is all the space that we can afford to the subject. In the year 1561, the old church was nearly burnt to the ground, owing to the carelessness of a plumber who was employed to repair the spire, and who left a pan of coals burning near some woodwork while he went to dinner.* The cathedral was restored without the spire, as it appears in Hollar's well-known print of London. Great repairs and renovations of the old cathedral were begun by James I., and carried on by Charles I.

The great fire of 1666 levelled St. Paul's with the ground; and in the general renovation that ensued, Sir Christopher Wren made the design, and was entrusted with the building of the present magnificent edifice. He began and finished the building, which cost thirty-seven years of labour, and one million two hundred thousand pounds sterling. In digging the foundations, Sir Christopher became convinced that the site had been a place of sepulchre prior to the Saxon invasion. He found abundance of ivory and wooden pins, apparently of box, which are supposed to have fastened the winding-sheets of the Britons. The graves of the Saxons lay above them, lined with chalk stones, or consisting of stones hollowed out; and in the same row with the pins, but deeper, lay Roman urns, lamps, lachrymatories, &c.

The foundation of the old church rested on a layer of hard and close pot-earth. Curiosity led Sir Christopher Wren to search farther. He found that on the north side it was six feet thick, that it grew thinner towards the south, and on the decline of the hill was scarcely four. On advancing farther he met with nothing but loose sand; at length he came to water and sand mixed with periwinkles and other sea-shells; and by boring came at last to the beach, and under that the natural hard clay; which evinced that the sea had once occupied the space on which St. Paul's now stands.

Sir Christopher had difficulties of all sorts to contend with in the erection of this great building: his plans were interfered with, his money was not paid, and his genius was undervalued. But he lived to see the completion of his work, and died at the

*It may be mentioned that in 1839 the beautiful cathedral of York was nearly burned to the ground by the very same carelessness on the part of some plumbers

good old age of 90. He was buried in the vaults underneath the church, and a fine epitaph was written upon him by his son, of which the concluding words are so well known,—

"Si monumentum quæris, circumspice."

The church was completed in the reign of Queen Anne, and her statue was consequently placed at the western entrance looking down Ludgate Hill. This statue, which is no great ornament to the place, stands in the middle of the front area, with the figures of Great Britan, France, Ireland, and America, * at its base.

St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey may be called the two pantheons of England, where monuments are erected to her most illustrious sons. St. Paul's contains the monuments of warriors of modern times, while Westminster Abbey is more remarkable for those of wits and poets, and the heroes of a remoter age than those whose memories are enshrined in the other minster. The monuments of Nelson and Cornwallis are the most striking, from their magnitude. Besides these, the visitor, from their prominence, will easily distinguish those of Lord Collingwood, Lord Heathfield, Samuel Johnson, Abercrombie, Sir John Moore, Admiral Rodney, Admiral Howe, Ponsonby, Captain Riou, Sir Thomas Picton, Captain Westcott, General Sir Thomas Dundas, Sir William Jones, Captain Robert Faulkner, Captain Burgess, Captain R. W. Miller, Howard the Philanthropist, Earl St. Vincent, Sir Astley Cooper, and Dr. Babington.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Doctors' Commons; College for students of civil law-The Prerogative Office - Causes of which the Court take cognizance-Heralds College, the record of the blood of all the families of England-Kings and PursuivantsDerivation of the term, Herald - Anecdote of the King-at-Arms of Ireland Apothecaries' Hall-Castle of Mountfichet - Castle Baynard — The Chronicle of Dunmow-Anecdote of King John and the Baron Fitzwalter -Curious royal grant to Fitzwalter of Castle Baynard-King Richard III. resided there Noble possessors of this castle- Legat's Inn-Diana's Chamber-Puddle Dock Thames Street Printing-house Square; the Times newspaper-St. Andrew's-by-the Wardrobe-The King's Wardrobe -Account of St. Paul's School and its founder, Dean Colet-Illustrious men and eminent scholars educated there; among many others, Milton, the Duke of Marlborough, &c.-Curious custom of the boys on St. Bartholomew's Eve-Cheapside-Bow Church-Murder of the Bishop of Exeter and others there, by rioters-Tournament in Cheapside, and its consequences-Contest between the Fishmongers' and Skinners' Companies and severe punishment of the offenders.

To the south of St. Paul's, extending down to Thames Street, is a district of London which is chiefly inhabited by ecclesiastical lawyers. This district has a character peculiar to itself. It is unlike the Temple, Lincoln's Inn, or any other of the inns of court; and the visitor will see in a moment that its inhabitants are of another class of lawyers altogether: the proctor cannot be confounded with the attorney, nor the grave doctors of the ecclesiastical courts with the barristers of Westminster Hall. Let the unhappy wight who is determined to go to law,,go at once to the Queen's Bench, the Common Pleas, or the Exchequer; ay, let him even plunge into the abysses of the Court of Chancery, and there will be hope for him still; but let no man, not even the most reckless, have anything to do with the Ecclesiastical Courts. Doctors' Commons, which gives name to this district, is situate in Knight-Rider Street. It is an old brick building of considerable extent, a little to the south of St. Paul's Churchyard. It consists principally of two squares. The establishment is properly a college for students of the civil and ecclesiastical laws, and contains various courts in which those laws are administered, subject to the common and statute law of the land; and several offices belonging to the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. The epithet of "Commons" is given to this place from the civilians

commoning together as in other colleges. The courts, maritime and ecclesiastical, are five in number; viz., 1. Arches; 2. Admiralty; 3. Prerogative; 4. Delegates; and 5. Consistory; in all of which the business is carried on chiefly in writing, according to the forms of the Roman civil law, by the doctors and proctors. The doctors are such as, having taken the degree of LL.D. at one of the universities, are afterwards admitted of the College of Advocates belonging to these courts, in which, after a year of silence, they can plead. The proctors are also especially admitted to practise in these courts, and conduct the preparatory part of the business, as attorneys do in the courts of common law. The civil law terms are the same as those of the common law ; but their sittings are arranged according to the business of the different courts, each of which has four sessions iu a term, besides by-days, &c.

The Prerogative Office opens at nine o'clock in the morning, from October till March, and shuts at three; the remaining six months it continues open till four. The usual public holidays are kept, any of which happening on a Sunday are kept on a Monday. Searches for wills are here made at one shilling each, and copies, which are always stamped, are to be had on application. They are registered from the year 1383. There are several interior registries in the Commons, viz., the Bishop of London's, in Knight-Rider Street; the Bishop of Winchester's, in Paul's Chain, &c. The proctors' offices remain open from about nine in the morning till seven or eight in the evening, the year round. This place possesses a library, consisting of books of history, or relative to the faculty of civil or canon law. The causes of which these courts take cognizance are, blasphemy, apostacy from christianity, heresy, ordinations, matrimony, divorces, bastardy, tithes, oblations, obventions, institutions of clerks to benefices, celebrations of divine service, mortuaries, dilapidations, reparation of churches, probates of wills, administrations, simony, incest, fornication, adultery, solicitation of chastity, pensions, procurations, commutation of penance, right of pews, brawling, &c. &c.; in fine, the jurisdiction of these courts are remnants of the ancient and more extensive power of the clergy in this country previous to the Reformation, and the sooner they are abolished, or greatly reformed, the better.

In the same neighbourhood is the Heralds' College, a quiet, sedate, and venerable spot: so quiet, so old fashioned, that a walk through its grass-grown court forms a striking contrast to any other scene that London can exhibit. One can almost

imagine that the date of the year is 1540, and that Henry VIII. is king; you cannot hear the hum of busy London that is all around. In its solitary chambers reside three kings,-ay, three kings-at-arms; and right royal they look on their gala-days, when they issue forth for coronations, royal marriages, processions, and so forth. The building is a brick edifice, having a front facing the street, with an arched gateway leading to a quadrangle. It belongs to a corporation of great antiquity, consisting of thirteen members-three kings-at-arins, six heralds-at-arms, and four pursuivants-at-arms, all nominated by the Earl Marshal of England, holding their places by patent during good behaviour. Their office is to keep records of the blood of all the families of the kingdom, and all matters belonging to the same, such as the bearing of coats of arms, &c.; to attend his majesty on great occasions; to make proclamations in certain cases; to marshal public processions, &c. One herald and one pursuivant attend the college daily in rotation, to answer all questions relative to armorial bearings, &c. &c. The fee for a common search is five shillings, and for a general search one guinea; the fees for a new coat of arms are from ten pounds upwards, according to the labour employed.

The heralds were not incorporated until the reign of Richard III., and the mansion they occupied belonged to the Earls of Derby. It was burnt down during the great fire, and rebuilt at the expense, principally, of the officers of the college. We should not omit to mention the sounding titles of the officers of the college. First, of the three kings-Garter, Clarencieux, and Norroy. Garter was made king-at-arms by King Henry V.; "and his office," says Maitland, "is to attend at the installation of knights of the Garter, to carry the garter and other symbols of that most noble order to foreign princes that are elected knights companions of the same; to marshal the ceremonies at coronations, and the funerals of princes and the nobility; to take cognizance of the arms of the nobility, and to grant supporters to newly-created peers." Clarencieux, the second king, derives his name from Lionel, third son of King Edward III., who, having espoused the heiress of Ulster, in Ireland, became thereby possessed of the honour of Clare, and was created Duke of Clarence. "He was thereby entitled," says Maitland, "to have a herald. The duchy escheating to Edward IV., upon the death of his brother, he constituted the herald thereof the second king-at-arms, by the appellation of Clarencieux. His office is to marshal the funeral solemnities of the nobility, &c.,