The folks could not understand plain
figures, and so resolved to take the sense and nonsense of the parish, and
the subject has been decided by a majority of 240 in favour of repairing
the Chapel. The funds for this purpose, it should be understood, were in
course of provision by public subscription, so that the blindness of party
zeal threatened to reject a special advantage--the public would find the
money if they would allow the Chapel to remain--whereas, had the
demolition taken place, the parishioners must themselves have defrayed the
consequent expenses. Historians loudly condemn the royal and noble thieves
who plundered the Coliseum and the Pantheon to build palaces, yet there
are men in our times, who would, if they could, take Dr. Johnson's hint to
pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and with it macadamize their roads; or
fetch it away by piecemeal to build bridges with its stones, and saw up
its marble monuments into chimneypieces.
The church of St. Saviour is built in the form of a cathedral, with a nave,
side aisles, transepts, a choir, with its side aisles; and the chapel of
St. John, which now forms the vestry, and the chapel of the Virgin Mary,
or Our Lady. To the east end of the latter there has since been added a
small chapel, called the Bishop's Chapel. Another chapel, (of St. Mary
Magdalen,) was also connected with the south aisle of the church. The
parishioners seem to have hitherto neglected the Lady Chapel, and to have
shown their cupidity in ages long past.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25