front of the cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris, whither the citizens crowded, expecting to hear him denounce his departed brotherhood, by renewing his admission of their guilt. To their astonishment, however, on advancing to the edge of the scaffold, he boldly revoked his confession, addressing them in a speech of nervous eloquence, which is said to have made an extraordinary impression on the assembled multitude. "It is right," he said, "in this terrible hour, and in the last moments of my life, that I should denounce the iniquity of falsehood, and make the truth triumph. I declare, therefore, in the face of heaven and earth, though I speak it to my eternal shame, that I have committed the greatest of crimes, the acknowledging of those offences which have been so foully charged on my Order. I made the contrary declaration only to suspend the excessive pains of torture. I know the punishments which have been inflicted on those Knights who have had the courage to revoke a similar confession; but not even the dreadful death which awaits me, is able to make me confirm one lie by another. The existence offered me upon such terms I abandon without regret." The same evening, a charcoal fire was lighted in front of Notre Dame, at which the last Grand Master of the Knights Templars was slowly and mercilessly burnt to death. In his dying agony, he solemnly cited King Philip, and Pope Clement the Fifth, who had connived at the destruction of his Order, to appear before the Divine Tribunal within a

specified time. As they both expired within the period predicted, it was not unnatural, in a superstitious age, that the common people, who were not without commiseration for the sufferings of the Knights Templars, should have been induced to regard them as martyrs in the cause of religion and truth.

The fate which was impending over their brethren · in England was scarcely a less melancholy one. There, the reigning monarch, Edward the Second, was easily induced to follow the example set him by the French King; and accordingly, on the 8th of January 1310, an edict was issued for the simultaneous seizure of the property, and the arrest of the persons of the Knights Templars, in all parts of England. A few, indeed, escaped to the dreary regions of Ireland, and others found shelter in the fastnesses of Scotland and Wales; but the majority were less fortunate, and no less than two hundred and twenty-nine knights were thrown into prison. To what extent torture was put into practice, in order to extort confessions from them, is not known. It is certain, however, that when they were brought before the inquisition,-which sat in the churches of St. Martin's, Ludgate, and St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate,-one and all of them denied with impressive solemnity the existence of those monstrous crimes, with which their Order was so confidently charged. All proceedings against them were finally stopped in 1312, in consequence of the Order being formally abolished by the Pope. At its dissolution, the

Temple was conferred by Edward the Second on Aylmer de Valence, second Earl of Pembroke, the fellow-soldier of Edward the First in the Scottish wars, and whose tomb, of exquisite workmanship, is still one of the most admired ornaments of West

minster Abbey. Shortly after the death of this powerful baron, the Temple was granted to the · Knights Hospitallers of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, who, in the reign of Edward the Third, leased it to the students of the Common Law, in whose possession it has ever since remained. The winged-horse, the emblem of the Knights Templars, and the lamb, the occasional emblems of the Knights of St. John, still remain among the many striking decorations of the Temple Church.

Passing under a semicircular arched Norman door-way, the deep recess of which is elaborately ornamented with pillars, foliated capitals, and other sculptured ornaments of great beauty, we find ourselves in that master-piece of art, the Temple Church, rich with a thousand historical associations. Here it was-clad in their mantles of white decorated with the red-cross-that the chivalrous Crusaders offered up their devotions and performed their penances. Their very seats, supporting the graceful marble pillars, still exist, and, beneath us rest their mouldering remains.

The Temple Church is divided into two distinct edifices. The more ancient is that into which we first enter, which is of a round or circular form,

having been built by the Knights in 1185, after the model of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The other portion, used as the Choir, is of a square form, and was not completed till 1240. Exhibited in the same view, they form a whole, which is not only almost unexampled for interest and beauty, but which is unique as exhibiting to us, almost at a glance, the gradual advance from the old Norman to the exquisite pointed style of architecture; the church having been commenced when the former style, and completed when the latter style, were in their highest states of perfection. To enter into a particular description of the Temple Church ;-to dwell on the rich harmony of its colouring, and the beauty and delicacy of its architectural details-pleasing as might be the task-is not within the province of this work. We must therefore content ourselves with pointing out the principal features of interest, for which the church is in other respects conspicuous.

Perhaps the objects in the Temple Church, which excite the most general attention, are the recumbent monumental effigies of the Knights Templars, which lie, in two corresponding groups, on each side of the central avenue. Not only are they beautiful as works of art; - not only do they carry us back in imagination to the romantic period of the Crusades ;-but they are also of great value as affording us the best specimens which we possess of military costume in England, from the

reign of King Stephen to that of Henry the Third. That they are represented in the same garb which they severally wore in their life-times, there can be no question. Such of the figures, as are represented with their legs crossed, are supposed to be those of Knights who had either served against the Infidels in the Holy Land, or had made pilgrimages to the Holy Sepulchre. This characteristic, however, when observed in other churches, is far from invariably being intended to denote either a pilgrim or a crusader.

Of the group on the south side, the first figure is said to represent that turbulent Baron, Geoffrey de Magnaville, created Earl of Essex in 1148. Having been forced into rebellion by the injustice of his sovereign, King Stephen, he was induced to commit all kind of excesses, which led to his being excommunicated by the Church. He was

mortally wounded in an attack on Burwell Castle, in Cambridgeshire, and, in his last moments, was abandoned by all but the Templars, who, finding him penitent, dressed him in their habit, and admitted him into their Order. Having died under the ban of the Church, they were unable to bury him in consecrated ground, and therefore adopted the singular expedient of placing his body in a leaden coffin, and suspending it from a tree in the Temple Garden. Here it remained till absolution had been obtained from the Pope, when the Templars interred him in the portico before the western door of the Temple Church. The next