done with extreme care and skill, and is in every way a credit to Mr. Crowther, the architect, his clever clerk of the works, and the no less clever head mason.

Of the parish churches that have come under my notice, all over England (besides that of St. Saviour's already mentioned), I shall only have time to mention three or four out of probably some hundreds. First, there is St. Botolph's, Boston, Lincolnshire. This is one of the largest churches in England. It has suffered both mutilation and disfigurement. Towards the end of last century the whole of this church was vaulted in thin woodwork and plaster, &c., below a splendid timbered roof. The effect of the church is thus entirely spoiled. There are, however, compensations at Boston, for the lofty lantern tower was a few years since completed by Sir Gilbert Scott, and vaulted in stone at a height of about one hundred and seventy feet from the pavement of the church. Then there is the Cotton chapel, in the south-west angle of the church, which has lately been beautifully restored by friends in Boston, U.S.

A ludicrous contrast of gorgeous paint and squalor came under my notice a few weeks since. I was at Kirton, in south-east Lincolnshire, and, of course, went to see the handsome and extensive church. It has severely suffered from the would-be restorers, but is refulgent in new paint. On going to inspect one of the aisles, my eye was attracted to a large square family pew, and on looking into it I saw— what? a load of coals! Yes, and in an adjoining pew there were coalboxes, brushes, &c.

All Saints', Oakham, a very large and stately church of Ketton stone, has been restored by Sir G. G. Scott, and everything about it has been thoroughly well done. I well remember this church before he took it in hand in 1855, and it was in a deplorably neglected state. Will it be believed that the pulpit and reading-desk retained the black

cloth with which it was covered at the death of King William the Fourth? The regrettable part of this Restoration is the destruction and removal of monuments, some of them having been placed in the tower, and some have gone no one knows whither. The external effect of this fine church has also been marred by the levelling of the churchyard. Ashwell, a beautiful little decorated church in the same county (Rutland), has also been very conscientiously restored; but decay seems to be doing its work with the new masonry very rapidly, as is too frequently the case.

I will complete the list with a church already mentioned, which is nearer home-that of St. Bartholomew's, Wilmslow. This church was altered, I cannot call it restored, in 1863. It had then certainly a venerable appearance, something old-world and quaint, you will say! It took some £7,000 sterling to convert this old building into a spick and span, brand-new looking church. I have a large water-colour drawing I made of this church ten years after the other, viz., in 1872. A very short description of the alterations must suffice. In the first place, a score or two of dead bodies were removed to make room for a transeptal chapel, with heating apparatus beneath; the plain oak timbered roofs of the aisles of the nave were panelled with deal at £1 a panel; a chancel arch was built where no chancel arch was ever seen before; the ancient seats of solid oak, the first benches ever placed in the nave of the church, and which had existed for a century or two under the seats of a more modern, but still old set of pews, were removed; many of the monuments altogether disappeared, including some to the memory of the Trafford family; the painted benefaction boards were removed from the walls and thrust aside behind the organ like "benefits forgot;" the ancient font was shifted into the churchyard, and replaced by a very poor new one; and lastly, when the

church was re-opened, the old parishioners, mostly farmers, were put out in the cold, while a new set of people, mostly from the large houses on Alderley Edge, were installed in the best places in the church. It is, alas! too frequently the case that, in altering and re-seating an old parish church, heart-burnings and jealousies arise that it will take a full generation to allay.

In concluding this paper, I may remark that, though critical investigators of ancient church architecture, including all lovers of truth and genuineness, will not need to be reminded of the terrible significance of the word RESTORATION in these latter times, it is still the duty of this society, and.of all kindred societies all over the country, to do their best to discourage this wanton and ignorant destruction of our national monuments of antiquity.

NGLISH courts of justice are best classified and distinguished according to the nature of their jurisdictions. They all have one common origin-grant from the crown, either express or implied-for, as Blackstone reminds us, the sole executive power of the laws being vested in the sovereign, every medium, by which such laws are administered, is derived from the crown, either through a charter or an Act of Parliament, or through prescriptionthe consent of the sovereign being, in the two first cases, expressly, and, in the latter case, impliedly given.

Some courts have extensive, others very limited, prerogatives: the civil courts of the latter class being confined in jurisdiction (1) as to territory, (2) as to class of suitors, (3) as to nature of dispute, and (4) as to amount of claim. These civil courts of contracted jurisdiction are again distinguishable inter se by their possessing, or not possessing, the right of ordering the imprisonment or arrest of persons, they being respectively known as "inferior courts of record,"

or "inferior courts not of record." The difference between these two classes of inferior civil courts can best be shown by the following definitions given by Blackstone :

:

"A court of record is that where the acts and judicial proceedings are enrolled or recorded: which rolls are called the records of the court, and are of such high authority that their truth is not to be called in question." "A court not of record is the court of a private man; whom the law will not entrust with any discretionary power over the fortune or liberty of his fellow-subjects. Such are the courts-baron, incident to every manor, and such other inferior jurisdictions, where the proceedings are not enrolled or recorded; but as well their existence, as their truth, shall be tried and determined by a jury."

I shall in this paper assume that all of us are familiar with the constitution and practice of an ordinary English court of justice, either with or without a jury—a familiarity gained by either pleasant outside study or unpleasant inside experience. I shall also assume that we are all acquainted with the general history and constitution of all those great Westminster civil courts which have existed in the present century; for these are all of national importance and interest: (a) the Queen's Bench (Bancum regis), the Common Pleas or Common Bench (Commune Bancum), the Exchequer and the courts of Nisi Prius; these all being common law courts of first instance, and all recently merged into the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice; (b) the High Court of Chancery (including the courts of the Master of the Rolls and of the three ViceChancellors), this being the equity court of first instance; and (c) the Courts of Bankruptcy, Admiralty, Probate and Divorce, and, generally, the courts now included in the Supreme Court of Judicature; as well as (d) the Courts of "Exchequer Chamber" (now quite abolished), Chancery