On the evening of Tuesday Mr. Beresford Hope attacked sthe
Chief Commissioner of Works again, denominating him, in relation to his claim to teach the public manners, " the -Chesterfield of the nineteenth century" (transformed by the Parliamentary report of the Times, which is now seldom 'trustworthy, into ' the jester of the nineteenth century"), and engaging in a philippic which was frequently, and rather rudely, interrupted by its victim. Mr. Ayrton, in his reply, was as unpleasant to Mr. Barry as ever, and rather more un- pleasant to national art. lie insisted on calling St. Stephen's Crypt, to which he bears a personal grudge for the money spent on its restoration, " the Vault," maintaining,--as usual, blunder- ingly,—that 'the Vault' was the proper term for it, as before the Reformation it was caned " St. Mary's in the Vault," and after the Reformation, St. Mary's was taken off, and 'the Vault' was the whole of the name left. Mr. Ayrton was wrong. St. *Stephen's Crypt, as has been shown by Mr. 11,Pltie:nzie Walcott, is .quite distinct from St. Mary's in the Vault, and was never known as the Vault' either before or since the Reformation up to Mr. Ayrton's time, when he invented this name of reproach for a -work of architecture he chose to depreciate and despise. To do Mr. Ayrton justice, his spite against places seems to be quite as .arbitrary and malignant as his spite against persons. He was even more effective in his tirade against " the Vault," than in his tirade against Mr. Barry, and quite as accurate. The natural -effect of Mr. Ayrton's speeches was to elicit a strong expression of feeling from the House in fivour of national monuments, and .against a spurious and false economy. Ile is a mere goad to drive Parliament into extravagance,—through antipathy to him.
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