and his dramatical troop. But will not omit faying, that his good fortune was not without parallel, for it is recorded," how Alphonfo, a Portuguese, being wrecked on the coaft of Guinney, and being prefented by the king thereof with his weight in gold for a cat, to kill their mice, and an oyntment to kill their flies, which he improved, within five years, to 6000l. on the place, and returning to Portugal, after fifteen years traffick, becoming the third man in the kingdom." Our munificent citizen founded, near this place, Whittington College, in the church of St. Michael Royal, rebuilt by him, and finished by his executors in 1424. The college was dedicated to the Holy Ghoft, and the Virgin Mary, and had in it an establishment of a mafter and four fellows, clerks, chorifters, &c. and near it an alms-houfe for thirteen poor people. The college was fuppreffed at the reformation, but the alms-houfes ftill exist.. This great man was thrice buried: once by his executors, under a magnificent monument, in the church which he had built; but by the facrilege of Thomas Mountein, rector, in the reign of Edward VI. who expected great riches in his tomb, it was broke open, and the body fpoiled of its leaden fheet, and then committed again to its place. In the next reign, the body was again taken up, to renew a decent covering, and deposited the third time. X. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. ign, he met with thole of the original prefbyterium, or femicircular chancel of the whole church. They confifted only of Kentifh rubbleftone, artfully worked, and confolidated with exceeding hard mortar, in the Roman manner, much excelling the fuperftructure. He explodes the notion of there having been here a temple of Diana, and the difcovery of the horns of animals ufed in the facrifices to that goddefs, on which the opinion had been founded, no fuch having been discovered in all his fearches. The first church is fuppofed to have been destroyed in the Dioclefian perfecution, and to have been rebuilt in the reign of Constantine. This was again demolished by the pagan Saxons; and restored, in 603. by Sebert, a petty prince, ruling in thefe parts under Ethelbert king of Kent, the first Christian monarch of the Saxon race; who, at the inftance of St. Auguftine, appointed Melitus the first bishop of London. Erkenwald, the fon of king Offa, fourth in fucceffion from Melitus, ornamented his cathedral very highly, and improved the revenues with his own patrimony. He was most defervedly canonized; for the very litter in which he was carried in his laft illnefs, continued many centuries to cure fevers by the touch; and the very chips, carried to the fick, re ftored them to health. When the city of London was deftroyed by fire, in 1086, this church was burnt; the bishop Mauritius began to rebuild it, and laid the foundations, which remained : withstanding Mauritius lived twenty years after he had begun this pious work, and bishop Beauvages enjoyed the fee twenty more, yet, fuch was the grandeur of the defign, that it remained unfinished. The first had the ruins of the Palatine tower beflowed on him, as materials for the building and Henry I. bestowed on Beauvages part of the ditch be longing to the Tower, which, with purchases made by himself, enabled him to enclofe the whole with a wall. The fame monarch granted befides, that every fhip, which brought ftone for the church, hould be exempted from toll; he gave him alfo all the great fish taken in his precincts, except the tongues; and lastly, he fecured to him and his fucceffor, the delicious tythes of all his venifon in the county of Effex. The steeple was finifhed in 1221. The noble fubterraneous church of St. Faith, Ecclefia Sanda Fidis in cryptis, was begun in 1257. It was fupported by three rows of maffy clustered pillars, with ribs diverging from them to fupport the folemn roof. This was the parish church. This undercroft, as thefe fort of buildings were called, had in it feveral chauntries and monuments. Henry Lacie, earl of Lincoln, who died in 1312, made what was called the New Work, at the caft end, in which was the chapel of our Lady, and that of St. Dunstan. In confequence of the refolutions taken in 1620, by James I. to repair the cathedral, the celebrated Inigo Jones was appointed to the work. But it was not attempted till the year 1633, when Laud laid the first stone, and Inigo the fourth. That great architect begun with a most notorious impropriety, giving to the weft end a portico of the Corinthian order (beautiful indeed) to this antient Gothic pile; and to the ends of the two tranfepts Gothic fronts in a moft horrible flyle. The great fire made way for the reftoring of this magnificent pile by fir Christopher Wren, an architect worthy of fo great a defign. I will not attempt to defcribe fo well-known a building; the defcription is well done in feveral books easy to be had. Sir Chriftopher made a model in wood of his first conception for rebuilding this church, in the Roman ftyle. He had in it an eye to the lofs of the Pulpit-crofs, and had fupplied its place by a magnificent auditory within, for the reception of a large congregation. This was approved by men of excellent judgment, but laid afide under the notion it had not fufficiently a temple-like form, A fecond was made, felected out of various sketches he had drawn ; on this defign fir Chriftopher fet a high value but this alfo was rejected. The third, which produced the prefent noble pile, was approved and executed. A fingular accident happened at the beginning while the great architect was fetting out the dimenfions of the dome, he ordered a common labourer to bring him a flat ftone, to be laid as a direction to the mafons; he brought a fragment of a gravestone, on which was the word Refurgam. This was not Loft on fir Chriftopher; he caught the idea of the Phoenix, which he placed on the fouth portico, with that word cut beneath. The first stone was laid on June 21, 1675; and the building was completed by him in 1710; but the whole decorations were not finished till 1723. It was a moft fingular circumftance, that, notwithstanding it was thirty-five years in building, it was begun and finished by one architect, and under one prelate. king and his train had covered galleries; and the better fort of people, if I may judge from the old prints, were alfo protected from the injury of the weather; but the far greater part ftood expofed in the open air: for which reafon the preacher went, in very bad weather, to a place call ed the Shrowds; a covered fpace on the fide of the church, to protect the congregation in inclement feafons. Confiderable contributions were raised among the nobility and citizens, to fupport fuch preachers as were (as was often the case) called to town from either of the univerfities. In particular, the lord mayor and aldermen ordered that every preacher, who came from a diftance, fhould be freely accommo. dated, during five days, with fweet and convenient lodgings, fire, candle, and all neceffaries. And notice was given by the bishop of London, to the preacher appointed by him, of the place he was to repair to. ANECDOTES. [Tranfmitted by H. S. a new Correfpond. ent.] I. CONSCIENCE. THE caliph Montafer having caufed his father to be put to death, fome time after, looking over the rich furniture in the palace, and caufing feveral pieces of tapestry to be opened before him, that he might examine them more exactly; among the rest, he met with one told the caliph, it was a Perfic fong, that had nothing in it worth hearing. That prince, however, would not be put off: he readily perceived there was fomething in it extraordinary; and therefore commanded the interpreter to give him the true fenfe of it immediately, as he valued his own fafety. The man then told him, that the infcription ran thus"I am Siroes, the fon of Chofroes, who' flew my father, to gain his crown, which I kept but fix months." This affected the caliph Montafer fo much, that he died in two or three days, when he had reigned about the fpace of time stated in the prediction. This ftory is well attested. Univ. Hift. Vol. XI. p. 197. 11. MAGNANIMITY. SUBRIUS Flavius, the Roman tribune, being impeached for having confpired against the life of the emperor Nero, not only owned the charge, but gloried in it. Upon the emperor's afking him what provocation he had given him to plot his "Because I abhorred thee," death; faid Flavius; 66 though there was not one in the whole army who was móre zealously attached to thee than I, fo long as thou didit merit affection; but I began to hate thee when thou becameft the murderer of thy mother, the murderer of thy brother and wife, a charioteer, a comedian, an incendiary, and a tyrant." Tacitus tells us, that the whole confpiracy afforded nothing which |