tifully appropriate to their design, than the best of our parish churches, those of Somersetshire for instance, with their gothic towers, which were erected in the best age of religious architecture, and those of Lincolnshire, with their fretted spires, seen far and wide over a country which contains no other objects either of beauty or sublimity. The Quakers have a mortal objection to the steeple; and in their orthodox phraseology they never call a church by any other name than a steeple-house-a hatred conceived in the same unlucky spirit which made them proscribe sweet sounds, gay colours, graceful apparel, and good English. The other dissenters have no such prejudices; but of the numerous places of worship which they have erected, there is not one which has the slightest pretensions to architectural merit, even among those in the construction of which economy has not been the first consideration. Heaven be praised, that our forefathers had a truer sense of the beauty of holiness, and built churches and cathedrals for us instead of meetinghouses! We hope and trust that this proud and visible distinction will be preserved on the present occasion; that the new churches may all be steeple-houses;' and that the good old fashion, sanctified by the practice of so many ages, and the feelings of so many generations, may in no instance be departed from on considerations of expense-motives so temporary in their action and effect should have no operation on works intended to last for posterity :-let us remember what Erasmus said of Canterbury Cathedral,-tantâ majestate sese erigit in cœlum, ut procul etiam intuentibus religionem incutiat.'

It is worthy of notice that when the plan of a new Post Office was laid before Parliament, a member, remarkable for his zeal for economy, objected to a noble portico, because of the expense; the portico was rejected accordingly, and a public building, which is to stand for ages, is to be erected, not upon the most convenient and appropriate and beautiful, but upon the most economical plan, for the sake of saving a sum in the year's expenditure, which, if equally apportioned upon the inhabitants of Great Britain, would not amount to a poll-tax of half a farthing! These are things which make an Englishman, who feels for the honour of his country, groan in spirit when he thinks of them. Our King Henry VII. says Stavely, built a ship, and he built a chapel, and both these, as it is said, at an equal charge. His ship remains not, ne tabella quidem, not so much as a plank of it. But his chapel stands to this day, and is likely to stand till the last, a lasting monument of the founder's piety and devotion.'

'Let us remember,' says a clergyman whose pamphlet lies before us, that when we cease to have a VISIBLE CHURCH, we not only endanger our very existence as a professional body, but the character of the middle and lower classes of society becomes proportionably deteVOL. XXIII. NO. 46.-Q. R.

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riorated

riorated or debased. The common people cannot philosophize themselves into religion. There must be outward, visible and tangible evi. dence of the services of our Maker, and our towers and spires should continue to raise and point to Heaven, if we wish to preserve the morals of the community from relapsing into a morbid state.'

Upon this subject the great moral and philosophical poet of the age has expressed himself with characteristic feeling and sublimity. O ye swelling hills and spacious plains,

Besprent from shore to shore with steeple towers,
And spires whose "silent finger points to Heaven;"
Nor wanting at wide intervals, the bulk

Of ancient Minster, lifted above the cloud

Of the dense air, which town or city breeds

To intercept the suns glad beams ;-may ne'er
That true succession fail of English hearts,
That can perceive, not less than heretofore
Our ancestors did feelingly perceive,
What in those holy structures ye possess
Of ornamental interests, and the charm
Of pious sentiment diffused afar,
And human charity, and social love.
-Thus never shall the indignities of Time
Approach their reverend graces, unopposed;
Nor shall the Elements be free to hurt
Their fair proportions; nor the blinder rage
Of bigot zeal madly to overturn;

And if the desolating hand of war

Spare them, they shall continue to bestow

Upon the thronged abodes of busy men
(Depraved, and ever prone to fill their minds
Exclusively with transitory things)

An air and mien of dignified pursuit ;

Of sweet civility-on rustic wilds.'

Our pews have often been objected to by foreigners as deforming the churches, and marking far too strongly the distinction of ranks in a place where that distinction ought, as far as possible, to be forgotten. The custom, however, has been too long established, and is too closely united with our domestic habits to be laid aside, even if these objections were altogether valid. That a church, considered simply with regard to its architectural effect, appears to more advantage when its area is clear, than when it is encumbered with pews, cannot be denied; but that consideration is perfectly inadmissible: what will be most convenient when the edifice is full, is the point to be regarded, not what will be most picturesque when it is empty. And whether our English system be not preferable to that of the Catholic churches on the continent, where dirty women during the service ply with dirty chairs to be let

out

out for the sitting, will not admit of a question. The separation into families belongs moreover to our national character, and to some of its better parts; the quietness, the reserve, the decorum of our manners require it, and the sanctity of private feeling is thus preserved in the act of public worship. With regard to distinction of ranks, it may be observed, that the sense of those distinctions is much more effectually precluded by the present distribution in which every one knows his place, than it could be by a promiscuous assemblage, which, were there not other and greater objections to it in our state of society, would be liable to this decisive one, that the contrast would be rendered more glaring by juxtaposition, and persons in whom no thought of their relative conditions would otherwise have entered, would have that thought irresistibly forced upon them when they found themselves side by side; the scheme therefore would produce the very evil which it was intended to prevent. And this consequence is so unavoidable, that in those conventicles where the principle is professed, common sense has introduced a wiser practice. Even in quaker meetings every one knows his place, and they who are most respected for their station in life always occupy the chief seats in the synagogue.

When St. Wulstan was building the present cathedral of Worcester, and the former and ruder edifice of St. Oswald was destroyed to make room for his splendid structure, they who stood by him observed that he shed tears at beholding the demolition, and they told him that he ought rather to rejoice in the enlargement of the church over which he presided. He replied, Ego longè aliter intelligo, quòd nos miseri sanctorum opera destruimus, ut nobis laudem comparemus. Non noverat illa felicium virorum ætas pompaticas ædes construere, sed sub qualicumque tecto seipsos Deo immolare, subjectosque ad exemplum attrahere: nos è contra nitimur, ut, animarum negligentes curam, accumulemus lapides. However natural the feeling which Wulstan thus expressed may have been, the fashion of erecting fine cathedrals was certainly no indication that piety was on the wane. It is when old places of worship are dilapidated, or allowed to go to ruin, while no new ones are erected in their stead, that the decay of the mystical as well as of the material church has begun. There was nothing puritanical in Wulstan's feeling; it was just as well as natural: the demolition of a fabric which time and many circumstances had sanctified, forced upon him a melancholy sense of the vanity and instability of all human works, and he could not but think of the chances and changes which his own edifice must undergo, and the destruction to which it must needs come at last, long as it would outlast him, his monument, and perhaps his very name. Very different from this is the spirit which sometimes appears in monastic history, and represents the splendour

splendour of religious buildings as a sinful waste of money which might be piously bestowed on other purposes. Such remarks proceeded from the same spirit which defaced too many of our cathedrals, demolished our painted windows, sold our church organs to the tavern-keepers, strove hard to eject the altar, and for two centuries prevented us from having a school of painting in England, by refusing to admit pictures into the churches.

That spirit happily exists no longer. The organ is now introduced even in meeting-houses, and it is no longer pretended that the eye may not rest upon a church-picture with as little interruption to devotional feelings as upon a monumental tablet, or a bare wall. 'The mind of man, even in spirituals,' says South, acts with a corporeal dependence, and so is helped or hindered in its operations according to the different quality of external objects that incur into the senses. And perhaps sometimes the sight of the altar and those decent preparations for the work of devotion may compose and recover the wandering mind much more effectually than a sermon or a rational discourse. For these things in a manner preach to the eye when the ear is dull and will not hear; and the eye dictateth to the imagination, and that at last moves the affections. And if these little impulses set the great wheels of devotion on work, the largeness and height of that shall not at all be prejudiced by the smallness of its occasion. If the fire burns bright and vigorously, it is no matter by what means it was at first kindled; there is the same force, and the same refreshing virtues in it kindled by a spark from a flint, as if it were kindled by a beam from the sun.'

A forcible appeal in behalf of painting has been made upon occasion of these new churches by Mr. Haydon and Mr. Elmes. Mr. Elmes proposes that a committee should be appointed 'similar to that which investigated the merits and value of the Elgin marbles; that various architects, painters, and sculptors shall be examined by it as to the best way of using the national wealth that will be appropriated to this purpose; that this committee shall be empowered to decide on the merits of our present living artists, and give commissions for building the new churches to such architects as they shall approve; that each architect so appointed shall execute his work on his own responsibility and at his own peril, and not exceed the sum entrusted him to expend; that each new church shall have one historical picture by some living painter, who shall be commissioned in a similar way to the architect by the same committee, and the architect desired to prepare his altar-piece accordingly, with double walls, &c. to resist the damp and to keep his church in a regular state of temperature; that five per cent. out of each sum appropriated be set aside for the expense of the historical picture, its frame, &c. that the committee be empowered to inquire into the

best

best modes of remedying the damp in churches, and every other object that may contribute to the improvement of these sacred edifices. This,' says Mr. Elmes, will set the seal of glory and immortality on the Regency of Great Britain, and form the key-stone of the arch of British glory, and will leave pictures, statues, and buildings to shew posterity what we were.'

Mr. Haydon writes with a warmth of feeling which the consciousness of his powers may well produce. He is laudably desirous of removing from the path of the rising artists, those obstructions which all who are established in the art have but too fatally experienced. He truly observes, that the great works by which the country has been rescued from the stigma of incapacity have been produced by the enthusiasm of individuals who have devoted themselves with the spirit of the Decii, and that those gigantic individual efforts, as they are now made, are of no effect, for want of a place of public reception. There are two ways, he says, by which the powers of the country could be called forth, by commemorating the glories of our Regency in our public halls, or by illustrating the duties of Christianity in our cathedrals and churches.' He proposes that, from the money voted for the new churches, three per cent. be allotted for altar pictures.

'Taking this plan,' he says, 'as merely a matter of art, it would preduce in a few years the most beneficial effects. Considering it as connected with religion, it would greatly tend to extend the influence of the Established Church; for one great reason why the Methodists have gained such extensive sway is from their having never suffered the feeling of their congregations to flag; whereas, in our churches, there is nothing to excite pious associations in the short intervals of prayer; the buildings are generally dark, dingy and cold. Surely there is no impropriety in saying the regular church might now use all the means of intellectual power and refinement in its reach, under proper direction, and do its utmost to counteract by its associations the feverous excitement of other sects. As a matter of art it would correct the great fundamental and pernicious effects of exhibitions. Where a picture is bought or sold, as it happens, and then hurried into obscurity, no opportunity is ever given for candid examination, nothing is left to time; its errors or its beauties are pressed on the people according to the interests or entities of those who conduct, or of those who oppose, the society where it is exhibited; parties puff or censure, ridicule or praise, just as it suits; the whole town is in a whirl of feeling, and before any one has time to estimate with perspicuity, the exhibition closes, and the picture and the painter are remembered or forgotten till a new season and a new subject obliterate the recollection of both while the public vote of Parliament for a picture, as for a statue, would be sound, fair, public encouragement, and collect by degrees the accumulated talent of the country, the work would be for ever before the eye of the world, time would establish its reputation if it deserved it, or destroy it if it de

served