23 APRIL 1881, Page 23

The Crypt of Canieaury Cathedral. By W. A. Scott Robertson,

M.A. (Mitchell and Hughes.)---Mr. Robertson urns made a worthy return for the distinction of an honorary stall which ho holds in Can- terbury Cathedral. The Crypt, winch he describes, is perhaps the finest in England, built, as it was, in the days when architects had learnt how to make largo arches. Part of it dates from the end of the oleveuth, part from the end of the twelfth century. And it has attached to itself curiously varied associations. In one of its chapels, the body of Becket was buried the day after his murder, and there it remained for fifty years, when it was translated to a shrine, east of the choir, which woe the object of the pilgrimeges of the next three centuries. While the body remaieed in the Crypt, the largest sum offered in the year was :020 (not far off £7,000 of our money). After the translation, the offerings, of course, dwindled, not rising above ;CIO per annum, generally falling below it. A very different interest is found in the fact that the Huguenot refugees were allowed. to nee part of the Crypt for their service in Queen Elizabeth's days, and that a French congregation has continued to worship there up to this day. Every visitor to Canterbury should study this admirable monograph, which might bo advantageously printed in a somewhat more convenient shape than that in which it is now presented.