It may

But its portico is its best feature, and the effect even of this is injured by the tower, which seems to be astride upon it. The sides of the church are poor; 'in all,' as Walpole says, 'is wanting that harmonious simplicity which bespeaks a genius. The vane on the handsome steeple bears a crown, to show that this is the royal parish. In its upper story is preserved a 'sanctus bell' from the earlier church on this site; it was rung at the moment when the priest said, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth,' that the Catholic population outside might share in the feeling of the service. The beauty of the interior is spoilt by the fragments of entablature inserted between the columns and arches. A fine bust of the architect Gibbs was executed by Rysbrach, 1726.

The existence of a church here is mentioned as early as 1222. Henry VIII. was induced to rebuild it by the annoyance which he felt at the funerals constantly passing his windows of Whitehall on their way to St. Margaret's, and his church, still really ‘in the Fields,' to which the chancel was added by Prince Henry in 1607, became a favourite burial-place in the time of the Stuarts. be called the artists' church, for amongst those interred here were Nicholas Hilliard, miniature-painter to Elizabeth, 1619; Paul Van Somer, painter to James I., 1621 ; Sir John Davies the poet, author of 'Nosce teipsum,” so much extolled by Hallam and Southey, 1626 ; Nicolas Laniere the musician, 1646 ; Dobson, the first eminent portrait-painter of English birth, called 'the English Vandyke,' 1646 ; Nicholas Stone the sculptor, 1647, and Louis Laguerre the painter, 1721. The Hon. Robert Boyle (1691), the religious philosopher, author of many theological works, was buried here, and his funeral sermon was preached by Bishop Burnet, who was his intimate friend. Two of the tombs from the ancient church, those of Sir Theodore Mayerne, physician to James I. and Charles I., 1655–56, and of Secretary Coventry, 1686, are preserved in the vaults of the present edifice. Here also may be seen a Whipping Post, presented to the parish about 1600, which was used for the punishment of men who ill-treated or deserted their wives, the last culprit whipped being a man named Langley, in 1652. This post formerly stood, with a pair of stocks, at the lower corner of Trafalgar Square.

The register of St. Martin's records the baptism of the great Lord Bacon, born hard by at York House in 1561. It has been said that Prince Charles Edward renounced the religion of his forefathers here.?

Amongst those who were buried in the churchyard was (Nov. 15, 1615) the beautiful Mrs. Anne Turner, who was hanged at Tyburn for her part in the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and who, 'having been the first person to bring yellow starched ruffs into popularity, was condemned by Coke to be hang'd in her yellow Tiffany ruff and cuffs,' the hangman also having his bands and cuffs

1 It is a pity that this interesting memorial of past customs should not be preserved in the portico, with an inscribed plate and protected by a rail.

2 Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann.

of the same, 'which made many to forbear the use of that horrid starch, till it at last grew generally to be detested and disused.' After it had lain in state, the murdered body of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey' was buried in this churchyard in 1679, with an immense public funeral, at the head of which walked seventy-two clergymen of the Church of England, in full canonicals. John Lacy, the dramatist, was buried here in 1681 ; Sir Winston Churchill, father of the great Duke of Marlborough, in 1688; George Farquhar, the comedy-writer and friend of Wilkes, in 1707 ; and Lord Mohun, killed in a duel with the Duke of Hamilton, in 1712. In 1762 Hogarth and Reynolds here followed Roubiliac to his grave, which was near that of Nell Gwynne, who died of an apoplexy in her house in Pall Mall in 1687, and was buried in the old church, being only in her thirtyeighth year. She is said to have left an annual sum of money to the bell-ringers, which they still enjoy. Archbishop Tenison, who had attended her death-bed, preached her funeral sermon here with great extolling of her virtues, a fact which, repeated to Queen Mary II. by the desire of his enemies to bring him into discredit, only drew from her the answer, I have heard as much. It is a sign that the unfortunate woman died penitent; for if I can read a man's heart through his looks, had she not made a pious and Christian end, the Doctor would never have been induced to speak well of her.'

The parish of St. Martin's, now much subdivided, was formerly the largest in London. Burnet speaks of it in 1680 as 'the greatest cure in England,' and Baxter tells how its population consisted of 40,000 persons more than could find room in the church. The labyrinthine alleys near the church, destroyed in the formation of Trafalgar Square, were known as “the Bermudas ;' hence the reference in Ben Jonson

'Pirates here at land
Have their Bermudas and their Streights in the Strand.'

Ep. to E. of Dorset. In the time of the Commonwealth St. Martin's Lane was a shady lane with a hedge on either side. It was open country as far as the village of St. Giles's. In a proclamation of 1546, Henry VIII. desires to have the games of Hare, Partridge, Pheasant and Heron,' preserved from the Palace of Westminster to St. Giles's in the fields. In Faithorne's Map of London, 1658, St. Martin's Lane is the western boundary of the town. At one time the Lane was the especial resort of artists, and in one of its entries, St. Peter's Court, was the first house of the Royal Academy (pulled down 1886), a spot intimately connected with the history of art in England. Sir James Thornhill

1 Macaulay and others write the name Edmundsbury. But in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey there is a monument to a brother of Sir Edmund, where he is designated as Edmundus Berry Godfrey. The best authority, however, is Sir Edmund's father. The Diary of Thomas Godfrey of Lidd, in Kent, says, 'My wife was delivered of another son the 23rd of December 1621, who was christened the 13th January, being Sunday. His godfather was my cousin John Berrie, his other godfather my faithful loving friend and my neighbour sometime in Greek Street, Mr. Edmund Harrison, the king's embroiderer. They named my son Edmund Berrie, the one's name, and the other's Christian name.'

1

lived in the Lane at No. 104 ; Roubiliac lived in St. Peter's Court in 1756, and executed his statue of Handel there; Fuseli at No. 100 in 1784; and the interior of a room in No. 96 is introduced by Hogarth in the

*Rake's Progress.' The panelled studio occupied by Sir J. Reynolds at No. 104, before he moved to Leicester Square, was only destroyed by fire February 22, 1881; Kenelm Digby, Daniel Mytens, and Sir John Suckling all lived in the Lane at different times. In the recently destroyed Cecil Court, on the left of St. Martin's Lane, Mozart and his sister lodged with their father on coming to London in April 1764. The name of the Court commemorated the old house of the Cecils, created Earls of Salisbury in 1605, and Cranbourne Alley took its name from their second title. It was in the Cranbourne Tavern that F. D. Maurice used to meet the working-men.

'Oh! that one could see once more that small figure in the black dress coat, hands clasped behind the back, rising by degrees to an almost statuesque grandeur through sheer force of inward earnestness, as in his deep and resonant tones he addressed his audience,-not arguing like an advocate, not summing up the debate with the methodical and colourless completeness of a judge, but striking to the heart of each fallacy, meeting doubts by the more clear unveiling of the truth that lay behind-disarming insolence by the humility of his expressions of personal shortcomings, yet utterly fearless in the assertion of the faith that was in him—the might and sincerity of the man's spirit working in every line of the strong chin, the quivering lips of the chiselled mouth, the deep-set eyes beneath the noble brow! There can be but one Frederick Maurice in an age of this world's life.'— The Spectator, April 28, 1888.

The ambition of London tradesmen might justly feel encouraged by the almost European reputation which was obtained in his own day by Thomas Chippendale, a cabinetmaker of St. Martin's Lane, and which has not diminished, but increased, since his death. He published here (at No. 60), in 1759, that exceedingly rare work, the Gentleman and Cabinet Maker's Director.'

The north of what is now Trafalgar Square is the place where the king's hawks were kept in the time of Richard II. Sir Simon Burley is mentioned as keeper of the falcons at the meuse ? near Charing Cross.' The site was occupied by the Royal Stables from the time of Henry VIII. to that of George IV., after which it was occupied for a short interval by the wild beasts from Exeter Change. Then the National Gallery was built, 1832–38, from designs of W. Wilkins, R. A. The handsome portico of the Prince Regent's palace of Carlton House has been removed hither, and, in spite of the wretched dome above it, it would be effective if it were approached by steps like those of St. Martin's : as it is, it is miserable. The, till lately, fine view from the portico has been utterly ruined by the destruction of Northumberland House. The figure of Minerva at the end of the building facing St. Martin's is a cheap alteration from a figure of Britannia intended by George IV. to ornament the Marble Arch. The new wing by Barry was erected in 1876.

1 See Rev. W. G. Humphry's History of the Parish of St. Martin's in the Fields.

2 The word mew was applied by falconers to the moulting of birds; it is the French word

This unhappy structure may be said to have everything it ought not to have, and nothing which it ought to have. It possesses windows without glass, a cupola without size, a portico without height, pepper-boxes without pepper, and the finest site in Europe without anything to show upon it.'— All the Year Round, 1862.

'It is, perhaps, the building in London for which the town has most to plead an excuse.'-Elisée Reclus.

The National Collection of pictures ? originated in the purchase of Mr. Angerstein's Gallery in 1824, on the urgent advice of Sir George Beaumont, who added to it his own collection of pictures.

It has since then been enormously increased by donations and purchases. A sum of £10,000 is annually allotted to the purchase of pictures. It is now admirably arranged, and the curators have begun to realise the truth of Ruskin's advice that

i The National Gallery is open free to the public on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays : on Thursdays and Fridays it is open free to students only, and, after eleven o'clock, to the public, on payment of sixpence. The usual hours of admission are from A.M. till dusk from October till ch, from 10 to 7 in May, June, July, and August, and from 10 to 6 in April and September. It is closed for cleaning on the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday before Easter Sunday.

'It is of the highest importance that the works of each master should be kept together; no great master can be thoroughly enjoyed but by getting into his humour, and remaining long enough under his influence to understand his whole mode and cast of thought.'

It is impossible to notice all the pictures here: they will be found described in the catalogues sold at the door. But in a picture gallery,' as Shelley says, 'you see three hundred pictures you forget for one you remember,' and the object of the following catalogue is to notice only the best specimens of each master deserving attention, or pictures which are important as portraits, as constant popular favourites, or for some story with which they are connected. Such works as may be considered chefs-d'œuvre, even when compared with foreign collections, are marked with an asterisk. When the painters are first mentioned, the dates of their birth and death are given.

'A fine gallery of pictures is like a palace of thought.'--Hazlitt.

'The duration and stability of the fame of the old masters of painting is suffi cient to evince that it has not been suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and caprice, but bound to the human heart by every chord of sympathetic approbation.'-Sir J. Reynolds.

Painting is an intermediate somewhat between a thought and a thing.'Coleridge.

'For the purposes of the general student, the National Gallery is now without question the most important collection of paintings in Europe.'-Ruskin.

On the walls of the Hall on the left are

Statue of Sir David Wilkie, 1785-1841, by S. Joseph; his pallet is inserted in the pedestal.

Bust of Thomas Stothard, 1755-1834-Weekes.

Bust of W. Mulready, 1786-1863-Weekes.

Relief of Thetis issuing from the sea to console Achilles for the loss of Patroclus-T. Banks.

Troilus and Cressida, painted in 1806 by John Opie, 1761-1807.

Manto and Tiresias, painted by Henry Singleton, 1766-1839.

688. James Ward, 1769-1859. A Landscape with Cattle, painted in emulation of the 'Bull' of Paul Potter at the Hague, at the suggestion of Benjamin West.

682. Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1786-1846. Punch and Judy, or Life in London. The scene is in the New Road, near Marylebone Church.

233. John Hoppner, 1759-1810. Portrait of William Pitt the Prime Minister.

Ascending the Central Staircase, we reach -

Room I.-Florentine School (beginning on the right).

895. Piero di Cosimo, 1462-1521. Portrait of a Man in Armour. The Palazzo Pubblico and Loggia of Florence are seen in the background.

915. Sandro Botticelli, 1446-1510. Mars and Venus. Mars is sleeping deeply, one little satyr is shouting through a shell to wake him, others are playing with his armour.

651. Angelo Bronzino (di Cosimo), 1502-1572.

human life- a foolish, ugly picture.

'All is Vanity.' An allegory of

*698. Piero di Cosimo. The Death of Procris. An admirable example of this great master of mythological subjects, with an idyllic background of water and hills.

'But Procris lay amid the white wind-flowers,
Shot in the throat. From out the little wound

The slow blood drained, as drops in autumn showers
Drip from the leaves upon the sodden ground.