HIS MONUMENT. Subtus conditur Hujus ecclesiæ et urbis conditor Qui vixit annos ultra nonaginta, Lector, si monumentum requiris, 65 We cannot preserve the pun in English, unless, perhaps, by some such rendering as, "Here found a grave the founder of this church;" or "Underneath is founded the tomb," &c. The rest is admirable: "Who lived to the age of upwards of ninety years, Reader, if thou seekest his monument, Look around." The reader does look around, and the whole interior of the cathedral, which is finer than the outside, seems like a magnificent vault over his single body. The effect is very grand, especially if the organ is playing. A similar one, as far as the music is concerned, is observable when we contemplate the statues of Nelson and others. The grand repose of the church, in the first instance, gives them a mortal dignity, which the organ seems to waken up and revive, as if, in the midst of the "Pomp and threatening harmony," their spirits almost looked out of their stony and sightless eyeballs. Johnson's ponderous figure looks down upon us with something of sourness in the expression; and in the presence of Howard we feel as if pomp itself were in attendance on humanity. It is a pity that the sculpture of the monuments in general is not worthy of these emotions, and tends to undo them. A poor statue of Queen Anne, in whose reign the 66 IRREVERENT REMARKS ON church was finished, stands in the middle of the front area, with the figures of Britain, France, Ireland, and America, round the base. Garth, who was a Whig, and angry with the councils which had dismissed his hero Marlborough, wrote some bitter lines upon it, which must have had double effect, coming from so good-natured a man. seen, Near the vast bulk of that stupendous frame, Like other monarchs of the Stuart line. Many irreverent remarks were also made by the coarser wits of the day, in reference to the position of her Majesty, with her back to the church and her face to a brandy-shop, which was then kept in that part of the churchyard. THE STATUE OF QUEEN ANNE. 67 Anne, who The calumny was worthy of the coarseness. was not a very clever woman, had a difficult task to perform; and though we differ with her politics, we cannot, even at this distance of time, help expressing our disgust at personalities like these, especially against a female. CHAP. II. ST. PAUL'S AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD. - Mr. Newberry's. The Church of St. Faith. -Booksellers of the Churchyard. - Mr. John- Paternoster Row. - Panyer's Alley. Armed Assemblies of the Citizens. Doctors' Commons. - The Heralds' College. Coats of Arms. - Ludgate. - Story of Sir Stephen Forster. - Prison of Ludgate.- Wyatt's Rebellion. - The Belle Sauvage Inn. - Blackfriars. - Shakspeare's Theatre. Accident at Blackfriars in 1623.-Printing House Square. - The Times. - Baynard's Castle. Story of the Baron Fitzwalter. - Richard III. and Buckingham. Diana's Chamber. - The Royal Wardrobe. Marriages in the Fleet. - Fleet Ditch. - The Dunciad. E remember, in our boyhood, a romantic story of a church that stood under St. Paul's. We conceived of it, as of a real good-sized church actually standing under the other; but how it came there nobody could imagine. It was some ghostly edification of providence, not lightly to be inquired into; but as its name was St. Faith's, we conjectured that the mystery had something to do with religious belief. The mysteries of art do not remain with us for life, like those of Nature. Our phenomenon amounted to this. 66 "The church of St. Faith," says Brayley, was originally a distinct building, standing near the east end of St. Paul's; but when the old cathedral was enlarged, between the years 1256 and 1312, it was taken down, and an extensive part of the vaults was appropriated to the use of the parishioners of St. Faith's, in lieu of the demolished fabric. This was afterwards called the church of St. Faith in the Crypts (Ecclesia Sanctæ Fidei in Cryptis) and, according to a representation made to MR. JOHNSON. 69 the Dean and Chapter, in the year 1735, it measured 180 feet in length, and 80 in breadth. After the fire of London, the parish of St. Faith was joined to that of St. Augustine; and on the rebuilding of the cathedral, a portion of the churchyard belonging to the former was taken to enlarge the avenue round the east end of St. Paul's, and the remainder was inclosed within the cathedral railing."* The parishioners of St. Faith have still liberty to bury their dead in certain parts of the churchyard and the Crypts. Other portions of the latter have been used as storehouses for wine, stationery, &c. The stationers and booksellers of London, during the fire, thought they had secured a great quantity of their stock in this place; but on the air being admitted when they went to take them out, the goods had been so heated by the conflagration of the church overhead, that they took fire at last, and the whole property was destroyed. Clarendon says it amounted to the value of two hundred thousand pounds.† One of the houses on the site of the old episcopal mansion, now converted into premises occupied by Mr. Hitchcock the linendraper, was Mr. Johnson's the bookseller,—a man who deserves mention for his liberality to Cowper, and for the remarkable circumstance of his never having seen the poet, though his intercourse with him was long and cordial. Mr. Johnson was in connexion with a circle of men of letters, some of whom were in the habit of dining with him once a-week, and who comprised the leading polite writers of the generation, -Cowper, Darwin, Hayley, Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld, Godwin, &c. Fuseli must not be omitted, who was at least as good a writer as a painter. Here Bonnycastle hung his long face over his plate, as glad to escape from arithmetic into his jokes and his social dinner as a great boy; and here * Brayley, vol. ii. p. 303. In his Life, vol. iii. p. 98. Edit. 1827. |