Minor Canon, Librarian, Succentor, and Junior Cardinal," in St. Paul's
Cathedral ; and it has been a labour of love with him to collect records and memorials of the splendid building, excelled and even equalled by very few churches in Europe, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1660. Nor was the building only splendid ; the foundation was noble, and a whole multitude of canons, major and ehantry-priests, singers, and the like, with which the scanty company of the present day contrasts unfavourably, dwelt under the shadow of the great church. There must have been at the time of the maximum something between five hundred and a thousand persons. Dr. Simpson draws with much skill the picture of this great ecclesiastical institution, and of its strange mixture of fervent piety and of what seems to ns the greatest irreverence. The Cathedral bad some famous shrines, those of St. Erkenwald and of St. Mellitus among them. It became in the fourteenth century the scene of a strange devotion to the relics of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster, a not very reputable aspirant to the honours of canonisation. The Lollards' Tower, a name often wrongly given to one of the towers of Lambeth, was one of its features. The outward aspect of the place, and the ceremonial of its worship, are excellently described in two chapters, entitled "A Walk Round St. Paul's," Very interesting, too, is the history of Paul's Cross, which was a platform, as well as a pulpit. When it was first set up is not known, but it was old enough to have fallen into a ruinous condition in 1307, when Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, granted forty days' indulgence to all such as should contribute to its repair. ])r. Simpson has given us hero a book very pleasant to read, and of solid worth. •
Previous page
