into oblivion, when the world was younger and more grateful than in this, its day of greater things. We are gazing upon the noble army of zealous defenders of the venerable creed of our Church, and inly exclaiming, as we think of other heroes and remoter times, "how are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" And we are listening at the same time to the mild rebukes of this grim array of the progenitors of our faith, the burthen of whose complainings hath in it more of sorrow than of anger, and who seem to murmur, because in this our generation men have gone up to Mount Pisgah to worship, eschewing the ceremonials which of yore placed at such a distance the creature and the Creator. We ramble on, void of all self-control, the same gentle spirit walking by our side, and as we tread upon the obliterated memorials of those who have been high in the world's estimation, great in prowess and mighty in renown, and yet of whom the stones prate of no whereabout, nay, of whose very names not one vestige is left upon which to establish conjecturewe cry out in lamentation, "Who hath the glory! who hath the glory!" Thus wend we on through the labyrinth of the dead, over the pillows of the sleeping ones; and, as we advance, our mortality becomes purer, and for a time, without impiety, we feel only a little lower than the angels.

Look round-can you contemplate, unmoved, a scene so fraught with sublimity? Can you fix your eyes upon the recording tablets that in every direction meet them, and not become wiser and better, by such collision, than if you were to spend years in perusing the written lines of which these are but, as it were, the index? And by whom are you thus surrounded? Upon whose dust are you trampling, as you pace the melancholy aisles? Come with us, and in our humble capacity and to our utmost power we will tell you of the shadows that are about you. Not, however, in the language of poesy, nor in that

sombre diction which would probably be most adapted to our task, will we hold forth to you concerning these things-for, to tell the honest truth, our forte is not in the pathetic. We are, in fact, somewhat of a gossip, and only in the plain and ungarnished words of our schoolday vocabulary can we give to the airy nothings of our brain "a local habitation and a name."

Proceeding, then, along the north aisle of the Church, and passing through the iron gates that separate the naive from the choir, let us turn immediately to the left, and we are in the chapel of the Earls of Derby, built, says tradition, in order to enclose the remains of one whose incontinence had deprived him of burial within the walls of the sanctuary. Over the door-way are emblazoned the heraldic insignia of an illegitimate scion of that house, whose knightly father, some centuries bye-gone, became Warden of the Church, and ultimately the proud Bishop of Ely. Within this same chapelrie he lies interred— yonder is his tomb, and upon it are carved shields of arms and mitres and crosiers, and a brief inscription, the bare outlines of which alone are left to tell of all that has been and is no more. He wedded with the mother of the Seventh Henry-he builded Churches-and "died from off the face of the earth"-and this darkened spot is now his palace and his Bishopric!

In the lobby of this chapel are three monuments to beings of less exalted dust; one to the memory of Mrs. Katherine Pigot, who died in 1792; another to the Rev. John Clayton, whilome Chaplain and Fellow of this Church, who died in 1773; and a third to the memory of George Lloyd, Esq., barrister-at-law, "who was equally distinguished for his amiable disposition in private life, and for his judgment and integrity as a lawyer." He died aged fifty-six, in the year 1804. These, in life, might have been too lowly for the companionship of nobility,

but in death they lay almost pillowed with the spouse of a Queen Dowager, and yet are not scowled upon for their close neighbourhood. Here also are memorialised, Richard, only son of Christopher Hartley, of Marston, in Yorkshire, who died in 1739; and the Rev. Richard Ward, L. L. D., who died in 1789, and was one of the Church's Chaplains.

Gliding across the aisle into the choir

"Relic of nobler days and noblest arts❞—

we stand upon the grave of the first Warden of the Church -Sir John Huntingdon. His were the days when priesthood and peace were not necessarily allied, when the leaders of the hosts of GOD were almost looked upon as the leaders of the armies of men, and in his double vocation he acted valiantly the parts that were allotted him to do-and yet, "without a stone to mark the spot," he lies buried within the space that he had himself built for the purpose of chanting the praises of Jehovah, and where, for more than thirty years, he had stood up to worship the Trinity in Unity

"And nothing outward tells of human clay !" Further on, and to the left of the door-way of the chapter-house, is a memento of another Warden of this edifice—the persecuted Heyrick. Under the Protectorship of the puritanical Cromwell, this too-conceding man suffered hardships and privations of almost every malignity was dragged from his high office as a minister of GOD-jeered at by a psalm-singing rabble, and cast into prison- and only afterwards allowed to visit his flock and to preach to them occasionally, because it was thought the trifling pittance allowed to him by the Parliament would induce him to be the more cautious in his holdings forth. With the restoration, however, of Charles the Second, came the re-instalment of Heyrick; he died in the fulfilment of his duties, and now sleeps well beneath the roof that most fitly can shelter him.

There is yet another of the time-honored Wardens of this venerable Church, who is sleeping within its walls; but alas! in the matter of fact days of the First George, it appears they thought not to record the spot-and we may wander over the graves of thousands of less devoted men, and not know if we profane with our foot the dust of the once eloquent Wroe? Others also there may be, who at the close of a turbulent career have laid themselves down at the foot of their own altar, and whose bones are perhaps now crumbling under the very stone whereon we are trying to decipher some indistinct inscription. It may be that the conscientious and heroic George Collier, who in 1530 defied the powers of Edward VI., and yielded up his office rather than be deprived of his independence— that the unfortunate Sir Laurence Vaux, whom the haughty Queen Elizabeth dismissed and afterwards imprisoned as a non-conformist, and whose overstrained heart sank beneath the yoke and released itself from the bonds at once of nature and the Queen and that the early satiated Birch, who took up the power only to resign it ere a year had gone round; it may be that these found repose in death beneath the roof that had so little shelter for them whilst living, and that in some obscure nook of this multiangled edifice lie the relics of these its once chiefest ornaments. But in loitering through the mazes of the place we fail to discover aught that would render convincing so comforting an idea, and lest we should be smiled upon as visionaries, we will yield up for a season our yet partial belief. On the floor, however, of the choir and the aisles surrounding it, we trace many a record of the names and virtues of such of the ancient laity of the parish as have been rich enough in this world's gear to purchase for themselves a resting place,

"Where meaner relics must not dare to rot,"

and who, perhaps, imagined in their pride of heart that

here their bodies would be held sacred, because here the intrusive foot of the vulgar would presume not to encroach. What would be their impression if, in the present day, they could come forth from their graves and behold on every Sabbath, and almost on every day, the rejoicings and the merry-makings, the marrying and the giving in marriage, which take place in the very locality of this their coffincrowded sanctuary? They would surely shrink back into their dim abode, shocked by the unconscious bartering of hearts on the very roof of their peaceful habitations!

Entering St. Mary's chapel, which is in the immediate vicinity of the choir, we discover several monuments in honour of the family of that good Humphrey Chetham who was the institutor of the Hospital and Library so named:-Here is one to the memory of George Chetham, of Turton, Esq., who died in 1664, aged seventy years: here to James Chetham, Esq., and his wife Margaret, who died, the one in 1697 and the other in 1709, at the respective ages of fifty-six and sixty-four: here again to Samuel Chetham, of Turton and Clayton, Esq., who died 1744, aged sixty-nine and here to Edward Chetham, Esq., who died in 1769, aged eighty years, leaving none behind him to perpetuate a name so highly honoured. There is also a small mural tablet to the memory of Mordecai Greene, who departed this life April 22, 1769, aged seventy-five years. And where, it will be asked, is the monument that should record the name (for his virtues have a living memorial) of that benevolent member of the house of Chetham whose life was the study of doing good, and whose death left an incense on the earth which is inhaled to this day with a gratitude that, as it were, crushes it in its hands, and returns it to heaven with a richer and more extatic flavour? Where is the monument that should tell how one man had the mind to conceive so much of happiness for his fellows, and the benignity at the same time to put into operation the chari