53 St. Vedast's, Foster-lane, interior rebuilt, (steeple 1697) 54 St. Swithin's, Cannon-street, 1679 Besides these churches, Sir Christopher rebuilt the Custom House, which was commenced in 1668, and again burnt in 1718; Temple Bar, 1670-1672; the Monument, 1671-1677; St. Paul's Cathedral, 16751710; Greenwich Observatory, or Flamstead House, 1675; Chelsea Hospital, 1682-1692; Frontispiece to the Middle Temple, 1684-1688; College of Physicians, finished 1689; the Mint, or Moneyer's Hall, in the Tower, 1691; Greenwich Hospital (mostly) began 1696; Marlborough House, Pall Mall; Hampton Court Palace; Winchester Palace, began 1683; the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford; Trinity College Library, Cambridge; the Chapel at Emanuel College, Cambridge; many of the City Halls; and various other public and private buildings. He also finished the western towers, and superintended the repairs of Westminster Abbey, from the year 1698 until his decease in 1723. ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.-WALKERS IN PAULS. THE phrase Paul's Walkers, or Walkers in Pauls, is familiar to every one acquainted with the dramatic literature of the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James the First; yet but very few have an idea of the disorderly and profane conduct that was practiced in St. Paul's Cathedral for upwards of a century; namely, from the era of the Reformation to that of the Commonwealth. To those who are acquainted with the decent order and propriety of regulation now observed in our Cathedral churches and other places of divine worship, it must appear "surpassing strange," that ever such an extended catalogue of improper customs and disgusting usages, as are noticed in various works, should have been formerly admitted to be carried on in St. Paul's; and more especially, that they should have been so long exercised, as to be defended on the plea of "prescription." 66 "At every door of this Church," says Weever, was anciently this verse depicted; and in my time it might be perfectly read at the Great South Door." "Hic Locus sacer est, hic nulli mingere fas est." It was customary also for beggars to solicit charity even within the doors of the church; which was likewise made a common thoroughfare for porters and carriers, as an admonition to whom the following lines were sometimes affixed to a pillar, over an iron box kept to receive donations. "All those who shall enter within the church doore These nuisances had became so great, that in the time of Philip and Mary, the Common Council found it necessary to pass an act, subjecting all future of fenders to certain pains and penalties. From that act, it seems the church was not only made a common passage-way for ale, beer, bread, fish, flesh, fardels of stuff, &c., but also for "mules, horses, and other beasts." This statute, however, must have proved only a temporary restraint (except probably as to the leading of animals through the church;) for in the reign of Elizabeth, as we learn from the third volume of Malcolm's "Londinium Redivivum," (p. 71.) idlers and drunkards were indulged in lying and sleeping on the benches at the choir door; and other usages, too nauseous for description, were also frequent here. Among the curious notices relating to the irreverent practices pursued in this church in the time of Elizabeth, collected by the same writer from the manuscript presentments on Visitations, preserved among the archives at St. Paul's, are the following: "1598. We thinke it a verye necessarye thinge that everye quorister should bring with him to church a Testament in English, and torne to every chapter as it is daily read, or some other good and godlye prayer-booke, rather than spend theyr tyme in talke, and hunting after spurmoney, whereon they set their whole minds, and do often abuse dyvers if they do not bestow somewhat on them.'*. * Spur-money was an exaction from persons who entered the Cathedral booted and spurred; the gentlemen of the choir were preremptory in their demand, and threatened imprisonment in the choir for the night to all who refused them a pecuniary gift. This custom is still prevalent among the juvenile members of the Chapel Royal at Windsor, and the choiristers at Lichfield, and "In the upper quier, where the comon (communion) table dothe stande, ther is met unreverente people, walking with their hatts on their heddes, comonly all the service tyme, no man reproving them for yt. "Yt is a greate disorder in the churche that porters, butchers, and water-bearers, and who not, be suffered (in special tyme of service) to carry and recarry whatsoever, no man withstanding them, or gainsaying them," &c. The notices of encroachments on St. Paul's, in the same reign, are equally curious. The chantry, and other chapels, were completely diverted from their ancient purposes; some were used as receptacles for stones and lumber, another was a school, another a glazier's workshop; and the windows of all were in general broken. Part of the vaults beneath the church was occupied by a carpenter; the remainder was held by the bishop, the dean and chapter, and the minor canons. One vault, that ought to have been used for a burial-place, was converted into a wine-cellar, and a way had been cut into it through the wall of the building itself. The shrowds and cloisters under the Convocationhouse, "where, not longe since, the sermons in foul weather were wont to be preached, were made a laystall for boardes, truncks, and chests, being lett oute some other cathedrals. At the time the above presentment was made, spurs were generally worn by the bucks and dashers of the age, to whom Ben Jonson alludes in a scene in the Alchymist, where Subtle advises Able Drugger to place a “loadstone under the threshold, to draw in the gallants that wear spurs." unto trunk-makers; whereby, by means of their daily knocking and noyse, the church is greatly disturbed." More than twenty houses also had been built against the outer walls of the Cathedral; and part of the very foundations was cut away to make offices. One of those houses had a closet literally dug in the wall; from another was a way, through a window, into a ware-room in the steeple; a third, "partly formed by St. Paul's, was lately used as a play-house," and the owner of a fourth, "baked his bread and pies in an oven excavated within a buttress." GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON.-STORY OF THE BLIND PIPER. AMONG the anecdotes connected with the Great Plague, most persons have heard the story of the "Blind Piper," who, having been taken up in the streets when stupidly intoxicated, was thrown into a dead-cart, but coming to himself whilst in the cart, he "set up his pipes," which frightening the buryers, they all ran away. De Foe, in his "Journal of the Plague Year," relates the tale differently. He says the circumstance occurred within the bounds of "one John Hayward,” who was under-sexton (during the time of the plague) of the parish of St. Stephen, Coleman-street, without ever catching the infection. "This John told me," says our author, " that the fellow was not blind, but an ignorant, weak, poor man, and usually walked his rounds about ten o'clock at night, and went piping along, from door to door, and the people |