THE FAIRY THORN. "Get up, our Anna dear, from the weary spinning wheel; At Anna Grace's door 'twas thus the maidens cried, They're glancing through the glimmer of the quiet eve, And linking hand and hand, and singing as they go, The maids along the hill-side have ta'en their fearless way, Till they come to where the rowan trees in lonely beauty grow Beside the Fairy Hawthorn grey. The Hawthorn stands between the ashes tall and slim, The merry maidens four have ranged them in a row, But solemn is the silence of the silvery haze That drinks away their voices in echoless repose, And dreamily the evening has stilled the haunted braes, And sinking one by one, like lark-notes from the sky Are hushed the maiden's voices, as cowering down they lie VOL. III 20 For, from the air above, and the grassy ground beneath, And from the mountain-ashes and the old Whitethorn between, A power of faint enchantment doth through their beings breathe, And they sink down together on the green. They sink together silent, and, stealing side to side, They fling their lovely arms o'er their drooping necks so fair, Then vainly strive again their naked arms to hide, For their shrinking necks again are bare. Thus clasped and prostrate all, with their heads together bowed, ' Nor scream can any raise, nor prayer can any say, They feel their tresses twine with her parting locks of gold, For heavy on their senses the faint enchantment lies Till out of Night the Earth has rolled her dewy side, Then fly the ghastly three as swiftly as they may, And tell their tale of sorrow to anxious friends in vain— S. F. THE LADY'S CHAPEL, ST. SAVIOUR'S, AND THE CHURCHES OF THE CITY OF LONDON. ex Who is Antichrist? The Pope? The Church of Rome? Mahomet? Buonaparte? They have all had their partizans amongst the various pounders of the unfulfilled prophecies; -and many plausible things have been said to justify a designation which must confer upon whoever is entitled to bear it, an infamous immortality, But a new candidate has appeared, whose claims can no longer be overlooked, and whose efforts, had they been seconded, would have scarcely been less effective for the overthrow of the Christian religion, than those of any enemy of the cross who had before been signalized by the fanaticism of infidelity. And yet we believe the London Bridge Committe, who recommended the destruction of the Lady's Chapel of St. Saviour's, and the committee who have recently had it in contemplation to take down no less than eighteen of the most venerable churches which adorn the city of London, were not actuated by any implacable hatred of the Christian name;-they were only insensible to the beauty of these ancient structures as works of art, and regardless of the associations with which they are connected. Happily their counsels have not prevailed. More than ten righteous men were found to protest against their unhallowed designs; and the city of London has, for the present at least been spared the calamity and the disgrace of adopting, as improvements, projects which would have stamped upon it a character of sacrilege and degradation. There are few of our readers who can require to be informed that the Lady's Chapel forms an integral part of the venerable cathedral of St. Saviour's, in the Borough, which is not only ornamental as a structure combining much of the grace of Grecian, with much of the sombre grandeur of the Gothic style of building, but also peculiarly interesting and valuable, as furnishing perhaps the only perfect specimen existing of the pointed architecture of the thirteenth century. "I will venture to stake my reputation as an architect," said Mr. Cottingham, the restorer of the Cathedral of Rochester, and of Magdalen College, Oxford, at a public meeting to which the meditated destruction of the Lady's Chapel gave rise, "that there is not in this kingdom a more pure and elegant design of early pointed architecture than the chapel you are this day called upon to preserve from demolition. It is not only admirable as regards its details, but, in its sectional construction, presents to the most untutored eye those securities against expansions which exhibit the pure principles of Gothic architecture in a bold connecting line, where defence succeeds defence, from the highest arch of the tower to the lowest point of the chapel wall. This line once broken, the whole fabric is endangered. It is to such buildings as these we are indebted for the best principles of construction ;-principles which the ancients never arrived at, and the moderns too often neglect. The greater number of such noble structures are already destroyed, and if the remaining few are not preserved, with what will their place be supplied?" This gentleman, than whom there exists no more competent judge, describes the edifice as, in its own peculiar style, perfectly unrivalled. "We have," he 66 says, a trio of pediments in many instances, but no instance of four, as in this case. consists of twelve early-english groined arches, supported by six clustered pillars, with half pillars against the walls. The walls are perforated by numerous windows of varied proportions, all exquisitely beautiful, and many of them unique in example, and which, when duly restored, will diffuse a light through the chapel which will exhibit an elegance of effect not at present It to be a native of the land which gave Byron birth? He places one of his characters in the neighbourhood of the Coliseum of Rome; he talks of the influence it had upon his mind, until, he says, "The place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er Our spirits from their urns," The Lady's Chapel constituted the spiritual court in which many of the early reformers were, we will not say tried, but subjected to that brutal mockery of justice and humanity by which the hell-born zeal of Popery was distinguished during the reign of the remorseless Mary. To this we have the following fine allusion:"Some expressions have been used about the relics of bigotry. Were they bigots, or were they not, who stood forward to attest their belief in the truths of religion, by the greatest testimony man can yield, when they devoted their lives to the cause of truth? We admire the sufferings and the consistency of martyrs of the early Church of Rome, under the persecution of Pagan rulers; and is not the feeling increased when we look upon the martyrs of modern days, and the sufferers for the cause of truth in our own country? It was in this spiritual court that such were tried in the reign of Queen Mary; that was the porch through which they entered the valley of the shadow of death, to a joyful immortality. These are things to rebuke the cold selfishness of men of the present day, who talk of pounds, shillings and pence, and never stand up for a principle. Wealth is perishable; but the virtues of men which gave dignity to the mind, shall flourish and be remembered, when all the splendour that mere money yields shall have passed away for ever." easily conceived." Feeling as he did, it would not have been easy for the lover of the arts to restrain the indignation which he felt at the attempt which was made to destroy one of the architectural glories of his country; and he accordingly, in no measured terms, denounced those by whom it was patronized, as Goths and Vandals. These epithets provoked the ire of The dead yet sceptred sovereigns that still rule some of his opponents, who would fain demolish the church without incurring any suspicion of a sympathy with barbarism. They were well replied to by Mr. Sydney Taylor, our townsman and fellow-collegian, of whom we felt justly proud, as the representative, on such an occasion, of all that was enlightened or ennobling in the Dublin University. "Gentlemen," he said, "I am not an inhabitant of the Borough of Southwark, but I stand here as a British subject, having an interest in the national relics of Britain. I consider such structures the great works of our mighty ancestors, to be the national property of England; and I consider every Englishman to have an interest in their preservation. A gentleman in this room has chosen to take offence because the word Vandal was used. I repeat explicitly, that the who are capable-(I do not allude to the deluded instruments of their destructive views)-but the men who are themselves the authors of the attempt to demolish that edifice which is, next to St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, the great work of sacred architecture in the metropolis-that such men deserve to be designated by worse than the name of Vandal. I would give them the name Christian Vandals; and I consider that that implies a stronger opprobrium, and carries with it a greater stigma than belongs to the barbarous and Pagan destroyers of the celebrated works of antiquity. This chapel is not only interesting as a work of art, but also as an historical monument. It is part and parcel of the history of one of the greatest monarchies that ever existed. Is that not a theme that will warm the hearts of Englishmen? Are they dead to the recollections of those days, which should always serve as a beacon light to the virtues of modern times? Is there a man here who would not consider it an honour men Well, and what was the result of all this? The result was, that many who came to scoff, remained to pray. The dilapidators were either converted or confounded; and the Lady's Chapel has not only escaped, for the time, the destructive ravages of civic economy and improvement, but has risen from its state of ruin and decay with renewed and, we will now hope, neverdying beauty. A subscription was immediately opened for its restoration, and a fund raised which enabled those lovers of the arts who interposed to avert the destruction that was meditated to carry their designs into complete effect. The Lady's Chapel is now acknowledged to be one of the most ornamental structures in the city of London. Seen by moonlight, it is peculiarly fine. It looks more like a creation of magic than of human art. But even in broad day, to a stranger passing Londonbridge, the effect is very striking. It rises serenely "above the thronged abodes of busy men, profane and ever prone to fill their minds exclusively with transitory things," and sheds upon the surrounding neighbourhood an influence that is a-kin to consecration. What had else been marked by nought but the bustling, active, enterprising spirit of trade, becomes tinged with a religious character; and the veriest votary of Mammon, he who is most exclusively engrossed by the concerns of the present hour, cannot come within sight of its solemn beauty without almost putting his shoes from off his feet, and feeling that the place whereon he treads is holy ground. Money changers once profaned the temple; and we have never looked upon this majestic Christian structure, standing as it does in the mart of the money changers, without feeling as if it had made reprisals, by compelling the most eager of the gain-loving tribe to entertain a transitory consciousness "that there is another and a better world." We have alluded to the case of the Lady's Chapel, because it is our belief that to the interest then excited in its behalf, the other churches of London, which were doomed by the wide-street committee, owe their recent preservation. So soon as their intentions became known, and it seemed not unlikely that their measure would be adopted, the inhabitants of those parishes whose churches were condemned took the alarm, and came to the resolution of petitioning, to be heard before the Lord Mayor and Common Council against it. The gentleman chosen to represent their feelings on this occasion was Mr. Sydney Taylor, whose efforts on behalf of the Lady's Chapel, no doubt, re commended him to their favourable notice. Nor had they any reason to repent of their choice. Perhaps there could not be found, in the whole range of the profession, an individual more capable of doing such a subject ample justice. He evidently took up his case "con amore," and pleaded against what he deemed a great impending calamity with the feeling of a man who felt convinced that by the meditated sacrilege the best interests of christianity would be compromised. He shewed, in the first place, that, so far as the particular church for which he was employed was concerned, the measure was unnecessary, as it neither obstructed any thoroughfare, nor stood in the way of any line of improvement. He contended, in the next place, that the parishioners had a right of property in their churches; and that having expended large sums of money upon their erection and repairs, nothing short of an expressed wish on their part would justify the civic authorities in taking them down, when they could not be fairly represented as nuisances. “But did the parishioners," he asked, "give this consent? Quite the contrary. He appeared before the court for the rector, the churchwardens, and the parishioners of these united parishes, to state that they had not, and that they never would agree to any plan which was to deprive them of their ancient, and he might say, domestic temple, and to send them for religious consolation, and instruction to some house of worship in a more distant place. Where their fathers worshipped, they wished to worship; where the ashes of their kindred reposed, they wished to repose." He then alluded to the natural feelings of respect and veneration with which, in all ages and in all nations, the remains of the dead were regarded; and said that he should be sorry, whenever the march of science deprived the human heart of sentiments which in both savage and civilized life connected our living sympathies with the mournful but religious relollections of the grave. "I would not," he added, "trust much to his regard for the living, who could invade, with rude or ruffian violence, the sacred precincts of mortality." This topic afforded him an opportunity of calling the attention of |