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with the honours of this interment, had her remains thence removed, after his accession to the English Throne, and here committed to the company of her equals.

Under the south aisle of Henry the VII.'s Chapel is a vault which contains the coffins of Charles II., William and Mary, Queen Anne, &c. In an adjoining vault, constructed for the purpose, were deposited the remains of several members of the House of Brunswick; but, as they have been subsequently removed to the Chapel in Windsor Palace, which is appropriated for the reception of the family, no particular mention of them can in this place be interesting.

Much more might be added upon the subject of Westminster Abbey, whether to expatiate upon its beauties, describe its contents, or record the interesting chain of events connected with it. The great body of these particulars will fall in rotation within the scope and object of the following pages; but even then, so abundant is the subject, much will have unavoidably been omitted. That matter, however, so far from being construed into a cause of regret, may, perhaps, be turned, not inaptly, into a theme of congratulation. The chief pleasure of information, is when to knowledge we have already acquired, we are able by ourselves to make considerable additions, and thus be our own instructors. In this view of our case, no subject could offer a finer reserve of interests than Westminster Abbey. In England, in the world, perhaps, it may be safely asserted, there is no religious edifice so replete with all that is grand and holy, beautiful and instructive. Other churches may surpass in particular respects; but taken as a whole, with all that still exists, and has been connected with it, we must look around in vain for a rival to Westminster Abbey. It is the pride of death, and the envy of life; a temple of immortality; a repository of crowns; and a sanctuary of genius, of which the history must endure, while there is a language upon earth, and a 'mind apportioned to the human frame.

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AMONG the many vague legends upon record respecting the period at which Christianity was first propagated in Great Britain, there is one which attributes that service to the apostle whose name distinguishes this Cathedral. The point is disbelieved by most authors: yet the curious in such matters will find the pretensions discussed at some length in the tracts on the British Church, which have been published by Dr. Burgess. The writers who enforce this fact, add another equally difficult of proof-that the first foundation of our great national Church took place in honour of this saint, during the time he sojourned on the island. But though nothing certain can be said upon these points, it is clear that the Cathedral had an existence during the rule of the ancient Britons, and was an archiepiscopal see in the second century, upon many different heads of evidence. There is a bull upon record, which was issued by Pope Gregory to Augustine, which directs that the Archbishop of London" shall be hereafter consecrated of his own synod and receive his pall of the holy see." Bede also informs us, that the Bishops of London and York had equal rank: his words are, "between the Bishops of London and York, let this be the difference, that he be the highest who is the first ordained." The degree of faith to be placed upon the current stories related of the primitive foundation of St. Paul's may be inferred from the fact that Sir Christopher Wren was only able to conjecture, that it was first built upon the site of a Prætorian Camp, established by the Romans, and reduced to ruins during the persecution of Dioclesian, in the third century.

Upon the ruins of that edifice, another structure was raised, as the same architect supposes, in the reign of Constantine the Great. But the relapses into Paganism were frequent, and the superiority of the Christian Church extremely precarious until the reign of Sebert over

the Eastern Saxons. Confirmed by the preaching of Augustine, the new faith then obtained numerous believers, and the monarch was an eminent benefactor to its cultivation. It has been said, that it was he who first established the Cathedral upon the remains of a Roman temple to Diana, early in the seventh century, and gave the Bishop Mellitus an ecclesiastical authority over all his own dominions, which have been conceived to have extended no farther than the present diocese of London. Ethelbert, to whom Sebert was Viceroy, fully approved of the creation of the new jurisdiction, and presented to the Bishop of London and Monastery of St. Paul's, the manor of Tillingham, in Essex, which it still retains, and 3000 acres of marsh land, situate north of the walls of the city, but no longer possessed by the Church.

With the life of Sebert, however, the progress of Christianity also dropped: the people rose against the monks, expelled Mellitus, and again restored the Church to the celebration of idolatrous rites. Thirty-eight years thus passed in apostasy, when St. Chad consecrated it anew, but was unable to conciliate followers enough to support him in retaining possession of the place. After a short but perilous episcopacy, he was forced to retire with thirty monks into Northumberland, and there one only of the emigrant band escaped the mortality of a violent pestilence, which depopulated the province. For some length of time after this catastrophe, it would seem that the East Saxons were without any preachers, and the next notice we have of their return is, when Wulpher, King of Mercia, reduced the country to become tributary to his power, and sent missionaries to convert the inhabitants. Bede relates this event, and adds, that it was happily brought about; the instructors, according to him, were received with comfort, and the people returned to the faith with much joy. The name of the fourth Bishop of London has been honourably preserved; he was called Erkonwold, and rendered the most effectual benefits to the religion he professed, and the church which he governed. He obtained from the Pope a confirmation of the various privileges it had latterly acquired, and added many endowments to its revenues. These services obtained for his name a rank among the saints of the English Church; but the sudden fame of the see fell away after his death, which occurred in the year 686. East Saxony became incorporated with Mercia, the dignity of London declined, and the only particulars related of St. Paul's, during two centuries, is comprised in a barren list of the names of those who filled the see.

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The greater portion of the tim which is counted in history under the reign of Alfred, left London in the quiet possession of the Danes.

When that famous monarch appointed the river Lee as the confine between his territories and those of his colonized enemies, London again rose in importance from the advantages of its maritimal situation. Towards the close of the ninth century, it was reduced to ashes by a fire, was then rebuilt by Alfred under more favourable circumstances, and at last settled under the administration of his daughter Ethelfrida. It was not, however, until the reign of Athelstan, the grandson of Alfred, that London grew into any certain presumption of wealth and greatUnder the dynasty of that monarch, the seat of government was removed from Winchester; and London from that period became fixedly a capital, was the seat of government, and place of royal interment.

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Athelstan was fully entitled, and upon many grounds, to the commendation with which his name is coupled in history. He was the first monarch who arranged any establishment at all deservedly approaching to the nature of a mint; he suffered one only coin to circulate throughout his territories; and appointed officers, called managers, to regulate and preserve the value of the currency. These managers were stationed in the different towns, and had their members proportioned to the size and trade of each place. Thus, Canterbury had seven of these appraisers, London eight, Winchester six, Rochester five, and so on the other boroughs throughout the kingdom. Another memorable and judicious law passed by Athelstan was that one which gave every merchant who had made three voyages over sea upon commercial affairs, the rank of a Thane, or feudal Lord. Though he may not receive the praise of having founded St. Paul's, he is entitled to grateful commemoration, for the care with which he restored its former state, and the liberality with which he provided for its future independence. Encouraged by his patronage, the monks of St. Paul's made the first translation of the Scriptures into the Saxon tongue; and also taught the first school that was ever opened in the kingdom for the study of Greek.

The next superior over the diocese was Dunstan, the Saint of that name, who makes so conspicuous a figure in English history, both as a statesman and a prelate. His administration was long and vigorous; he added as well to the privileges as to the possessions of the church; and when he died in 988, the glory of St. Paul's, to use the emphatical words of the old chronicles, died with him. The only honour it obtained from the reign of Ethelred the II. was his burial in the vaults of the Cathedral: the city which had rendered him most essential aid during the vexations of life, received the care of his

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corpse in the quiet of death; after which his son Edmond was crowned over his grave. It was to the pious attention of the monastery of St. Paul's, that the conversion of Canute, the Dane, was attributed; and the warrior monarch amply proved his sense of the favour by the general countenance he bestowed upon the clergy, and the especial grants he conferred upon the Cathedral. The rank of Dean of St. Paul's was first instituted during his reign, and by him endowed with a revenue for the support of its dignity. Canute's residence was near the church, and extended down to the banks of the Thames; it had the ground now covered by Castle Baynard Ward for the demesne of his palace. Edward, the Confessor, is next recorded among the royal benefactors of St. Paul's; but the celebrity of. his patronage to this edifice is far eclipsed by the splendid works he erected in the monastery of St. Peter, on Thorney Island, which is now universally known as Westminster Abbey.

Another fire laid the city in ruins, and with it the Cathedral, in the year 1088. Mauritius, then Bishop of London, immediately commenced the work of re-building it, and upon a scale of greater extent, and a style of higher magnificence. The labour was continued with enviable spirit by Richard de Belmeis, the succeeding Bishop, who, besides devoting the whole of his ecclesiastical revenues, after the example of Mauritius, to the completion of this stately project; also found means to lay the first establishment of the Grammar School, which has existed with such prosperity down to the present day. To him it was that Henry the First conceded the royal tower south of the church in order to encrease the materials for the work. Much difference has subsisted between antiquaries, as to what tower or palace it was that was thus presented. Some have confounded it with the Palatinate Tower, near the river Fleet, on the ground of which the prison now stands; others have erroneously supposed it to have been the Bell Tower, in Cheapside; but the fact is, that the gift consisted of the ruins of the palace, supposed to have been built by Athelstan, and which had been inhabited, as already mentioned, by Canute the Dane. Exclusive of this donation from the piety of the sovereign, the contributions from private individuals, "to God and the Church of St. Paul," were numerous and considerable. The consequence of all this ardour on the part of the bishop, and piety on the side of his flock, was the production of the Gothic fabric, which is so minutely described, and eminently commended in the antiquarian writings of Dugdale, Hallar, and others,--a fabric which not only exceeded in beauties,, but surpassed in every circumstance of riches and state any thing before

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