the monastic church, with the first bay of the nave and fragments of the transepts. The choir has a triforium and clerestory, and is entirely surrounded by an ambulatory. The narrow stilted horseshoe arches of the apse are very curious. Of the arches which supported the tower, two are round, the others (towards the transepts) slightly pointed. The general effect of this interior is greatly enhanced by having its area kept open, with chairs in the place of pews, allowing the lines of the architecture and the bases of the pillars to be seen. "It is recorded that three Greek travellers of noble family were present at the foundation, and foretold the future importance of the church. They were probably merchants from Byzantium, and it has been conjectured that they were consulted by the founder respecting the plan and architectural character of the church."-Rickman. It is this monastic choir, as we now see it, which witnessed a strange scene when (1247) the Provençal Archbishop Boniface, uncle of Henry III.'s queen, Ellinor, irritated at a want of deference on the part of the sub-prior, rushed upon him, slapped him in the face, tore his cope to fragments, and trampled it under foot, and finally, being himself in full armour under his vestments, pressed him against a pillar so violently as almost to kill him. A general scrimmage ensued between the monks and the attendants of the archbishop, and as the inhabitants of Smithfield poured in to the assistance of the former, Boniface was forced to fly to Lambeth, followed by shouts that he was a ruffian and cruel, unlearned and a stranger, and moreover that he had a wife! The last prior was Fuller, previously prior of Waltham. * Mon. Ang. vol. vi. p. 294. Under his predecessor, Prior Bolton (1506 to 1532), a great deal of restoration was done, marked by the perpendicular work inserted on the old Norman building. Especially noteworthy is the oriel called Prior Bolton's pew, projecting over the south side of the choir, where the prior ་ Prior Bolton's Pew. sate during service, or whence the sacristan watched the altar. It is adorned with the rebus of its builder-a bolt through a ton. There are similar oriels at Malmesbury and in Exeter Cathedral. *The well-known Inn in Fleet Street "the Bolt in Tun" took its name from the rebus of Prior Bolton. On the north of the choir is the tomb erected in the fifteenth century to the founder, Rahere, with a beautifully groined canopy. At the foot of his sleeping figure stands a crowned angel, and on either side kneels a monk, with a Bible open at Isaiah li., and the words, "The Lord shall comfort Zion: He will comfort all her waste places; and He will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody." On the north wall, also, is the monument of Robert Chamberlayne, ambassador, with two grand angels drawing the curtains of a tent within which he is kneeling in armour. Behind, in the ambulatory, are two recesses; that nearest the east end was part of the Walden Chapel, where Walden, Bishop of London, was buried. From a very humble sphere he rose to be Dean of York, Treasurer of Calais, Secretary to the King, and Treasurer of England. When Archbishop Arundel was banished by Richard II. Walden was made archbishop, but when Arundel returned with Henry IV., he was deposed, though he was generously made Bishop of London by his rival. "He may be compared," says Fuller, "to one so jaw-fallen with over long fasting, that he cannot eat meat when brought unto him; and his spirits were so depressed with his former ill-fortunes, that he could not enjoy himself in his new unexpected happiness." Making the round of the ambulatory, behind the grand Norman pillars of the choir, we find a number of curious monuments. The first is that of Dr. Francis Anthony (ob. 1623), who invented and believed in an extraordinary medicine which was to work universal cures―aurum potabile, being extract or honey of gold, capable of being dissolved in any liquid whatsoever. Dr. Anthony published a learned defence of his discovery, intended to show that "after inexpressible labour, watching, and expense, he had, through the blessing of God, attained all he had sought for in his inquiries." The medicine obtained great celebrity in the reign of James I., and Dr. Anthony lived in much honour in Bartholomew Close, and bequeathed the secret of aurum potabile to his son, who wrote on his monument, which bears three pillars encircled by a wreath, the epitaph "There needs no verse to beautify thy praise, Yet shall they all commend that high design That feel thy help by that thy rare invention." The next monument is that of Rycroft (1677), who translated the polyglot Bible. It rests upon the volumes of his work. Then comes a monument to John Whiting, with the pretty epitaph-- "Shee first deceased, he for a little try'd To live without her, lik'd it not, and dy'd." Passing the piers which formed the boundary of the Lady Chapel, we reach the fine bust of James Rivers (1641), which is probably the work of Hubert de Soeur, who lived close by in Cloth Fair. Beneath, written at the beginning of the Civil War, are the verses "Within this hollow vault there rests the frame Of the high soul that once inform'd the same; Conquer'd the age, conquer'd himself and died." The next monument, of Edward Cooke, "philosopher and doctor," is of a kind of marble which drips with water in damp weather, and has the appropriate epitaph "Unsluice, ye briny floods. What! can ye keep |