shades, the Christian church should excite in the mind ideas of eternity, and of the immeasurable distance by which God is concealed from us, even in those places most occupied by his invisible presence. The pagan temple appeals only to the senses, which it too speedily satisfies. Admiration is soon exhausted by its uniform perfection. It is to be regretted that scriptural paintings are not introduced into St. Paul's: they would help to fill up the cold vacuum of the interior, and would clearly denote the object for which the structure is destined.

St. Paul's was originally one of the first Christian churches founded in England. What a contrast must exist between its present magnificence and the aspect it exhibited in those primitive times, when, as an old chronicler observes, churches and chalices were of wood, and priests were of gold!

Some of the dissenting sects, such as the

It is related that when St. Wulstan saw the demolition of the old and rude edifice of St. Oswald, which was pulled down for the purpose of erecting the cathedral of Worcester in its stead, he could not refrain from shedding tears. Some one said to him, "You ought rather to re"joice in witnessing the enlargement of the church over which you pre"side." "I am far from thinking," replied Wulstan, "that we sinners "have any right to demolish the works of the saints, for the sake of raising above their ruins new monuments for our own glory. In the "happy times of those good servants of Christ, the art of building pompous edifices was unknown; but men knew how to sacrifice them"selves for God in all sorts of temples, and to convert their fellow"creatures by their pious example. We, on the contrary, neglect the care of souls, while we employ ourselves in piling up heaps of stones." It was perfectly natural that St. Wulstan should experience these sentiments. The demolition of an edifice sanctified by age and by pious recollections, distressed him, because it reminded him of the VOL. I.

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quakers and methodists, seem to wish to restore ecclesiastical architecture to its primitive simplicity. Real churchmen, however, like Southey, begin to regret the want of the statues and pictures of catholicism, and quote the observation made by Erasmus on Canterbury cathedral:— Tantâ magestate sese erigit in cœlum, ut, procul etiam, intuentibus religionem incutiat.

Many persons conceive that the English school of painting requires only public encouragement, and they are anxious that the present king should continue the patronage which his father extended to the fine arts in the person of West. They suggest that the recollection of England's triumphs should be immortalized by painters whose works have been deemed worthy to adorn the walls of palaces. Artists are directed to the scriptures as containing an inexhaustible store of subjects for pictures, which would be worthy to be consecrated in churches. Sincere members of the English church are of opinion that protestants should not be deprived of the advantage of appealing to the eyes of the people, and impressing on the youthful imagination thoughts and lessons, which ought to be ever fresh in the recollection. The art of painting not only produces painters: it has created heroes and penitents, saints and martyrs, by its power of exciting laudable emula

vanity and instability of all the works of man. He could not but think of the changes which the new structure was doomed to undergo, and its inevitable decay, however long it might survive him, his tomb, and perhaps his name.

tion. By extending to the fine arts the national encouragement to which they have an undoubted claim, a salutary impulse is given to virtue and patriotism, as well as to genius.

I shall close this letter by one observation respecting London. The English capital may be said to consist of two towns, one of old date, including the city properly so called, and the other of recent construction, called by way of distinction, the west end, where colonnades and elegant streets are daily multiplying. In the city, amidst old and irregular brick houses, whose shadows cast a gloom over labyrinths of narrow streets, arise the chaste dome of St. Paul's, and the Grecian-like column emphatically called the Monument; while the picturesque turrets and spires of Westminster Abbey overlook the more modern buildings in the western part of London. The Monument which helps to produce this contrast, serves to perpetuate an historical calumny against the Roman catholics. Is it necessary for almost periodically decimating Ireland, to maintain in the eyes of the English people an atrocious accusation, which daily denounces to the fury of fanaticism a nation of Christians and brothers?

LETTER IX.

TO M. AUG. SOULIÉ.

I HAVE admired St. Paul's cathedral, were it only for the sake of securing the right of more freely eulogizing Westminster Abbey or St. Peter's Church! What a confession! But am I really obliged to adopt this precaution, before I can venture to prefer a gothic church to a romano-greek temple, when this preference is founded on the indispensable unison between the architecture of a nation, and its climate, religion and origin; when, above all, this preference is wholly independent of the positive merit of each edifice consi dered merely as a work of art ?

St. Paul's is, as a whole, inferior to the cathedrals of Canterbury and York; but the beautiful chapel of Henry VII., which forms an appendage to Westminster Abbey, is undoubtedly the finest monument of gothic architecture extant. Henry VII. expended £14,000 on the erection of the chapel, a sum equivalent to that which he paid for the building of a ship of war. Of the ship, not a single board now remains; all have rotted in the harbours, or have been dispersed by storms. But the chapel still stands, an everlasting monument, or, as a Christian bard might say, a visible symbol of the bark of St. Peter, which neither the

power of hell nor time can reach. Henry VII.'s chapel is not one of those structures dilapidated by age, on which imagination confers a degree of perfection which it never possessed. A modern artist, Mr. Gayfere, has recently restored to this venerable pile all the beauty and freshness which it exhibited three hundred years ago, without destroying the ideal illusion which crowns the old age of religious structures. This chapel, with its elegant turrets and spires, and walls wrought with the delicacy of lace, almost realizes the conception of a fairy palace. The softly shaded interior of the building denotes the object of its destination: it is a mausoleum specially consecrated to royal ashes; for though Westminster Abbey receives within its sanctuary all historical illustrations, it is a mistake to suppose that ranks are there levelled and confounded.

Many French travellers who have visited England, in the excess of their love of equality, have dwelt with singular complacency on this sepulchral Utopia. How often have I heard it affirmed in France, that the honours of Westminster Abbey belong by right to genius as well as to royalty, and that the monument of the poor Grub-street poet rises beside the cenotaph of kings! Struck with the inequality, not only in the situation, but in the forms of the tombs, and seeing in many instances the splendid mausoleum, inscribed with an aristocratic name, proudly overshadowing the simple marble tablet, I could not help thinking of the well known dialogue between the remains of