The pulpit and sounding-board are of oak, richly carved, and in the western gallery is an organ. The altar and font are formed of expensive materials, and were, without doubt, the gift of some liberal benefactor. The former is not a table of wood as usual in modern churches, but consists of a slab of beautifully veined marble, apparently Sienna, sustained on gilt supporters; upon the table is a marble pedestal, covered with a smaller ledger ; this is hollow, and the ledger, being moveable, forms a receptacle probably designed for the care of the communion plate. The font is formed of the same marble, and is of large dimensions. Thus it is to be seen that the architectural claims of this structure are of no common order. The church is dedicated to St. Bartholomew the Apostle, and as there are two other churches in the city under the patronage of this saint, it was necessary to add a further distinctive appellation, and it was therefore called St. Bartholomew the Little, though in modern times it has derived an addition from its proximity to the Exchange, which it is evident could not have been its ancient distinction, the church existing long before the Royal Exchange was contemplated. The destruction of this edifice was contemplated some years ago; it was then averted, and has now been revived, in consequence of the destruction of the Royal Exchange. The necessity for the removal of this edifice appears to be very questionable. It seems that the whole of the eastern side of St. Bartholomew's lane is to be taken down, to widen the thoroughfare,-an act which at present may be regarded almost as a work of supererogation. Some years since it was contemplated to make a street from the back of the old Royal Exchange, in the direction of Moorfields, and then the widening of the lane was requisite; but since Moorgate street has been formed-which has proved a more desirable and useful alteration-the widening of St. Bartholomew's lane seems to be of far less utility; and as it involves the sacrifice of the church it is greatly to be deplored and regretted. In consequence of the extensive alterations in this neighbourhood, a new site will be required for the Sun Fire Office; and this establishment, it is said, is to occupy the place of the church: thus are buildings of religion set aside to suit the purposes of commercial enterprize. St. Christopher le Stocks, the loss of which Pennant so feelingly deplores, was another church destroyed to make way for the immense buildings of the Bank. It is truly lamentable to see the slight excuses which may serve as apologies for the destruction of a church. There is one circumstance attendant on the removal of this church, which must not be passed over, as it evinces that greater attention to the ashes of the departed has been bestowed in this than in former instances. A mausoleum it appears is to be erected on some part of the consecrated site, for the purpose of containing such of the bodies of the dead as may not be removed by the existing families. This mausoleum, it is to be hoped, will be an ornamental building, and such as the good taste of Mr. Cockerell can readily supply. After the conclusion of the present month Divine Service will no longer be performed in the church, and the demolition will then commence. The church of ST. BENEDICT, corrupted into Benet, has the affix of Fink joined to it, to distinguish it from several churches in the metropolis dedicated to that great patron of monachism. This is derived from an early benefactor to the church, Robert Fink, whose name, softened into Finch, is retained in the adjoining lane. This church, like the former, was surrounded by incumbrances. A portion only of the square tower was visible above the surrounding houses; and the north side, the only part seen from the street, was partly hid by a large dwelling house, and further disfigured by a watch-house, built with peculiar taste against its walls. Few persons casually passing this church would regard it with any particular notice; so little was seen, and so apparently irregular was the edifice, that they would scarcely think it worth their while to bestow more than a passing glance. On taking down the adjacent buildings, the church stood out in so bold a point of view, that no one, except those who had critically examined the structure, could suppose it possessed so much merit as it really does. The plan of the church is uncommon, and very effective. The external walls form a decagon; in the interior a peristyle of columns, disposed in an oval plan, make the church into a nave, with a surrounding aisle,-the central portion being covered with a dome, which had formerly a lantern on its apex. The tower is built against the western face of the decagon, and the lower story forms an open porch, covering the entrance to the church and churchyard. This tower, with the exception of its eastern wall, is quite free of the church, and rises from the ground independent of the main edifice, which, in consequence of its plan, recedes from the tower. This is the only instance in London of a similar arrangement; yet it is so good that the plan of the edifice might form a standard for church architects. The tower is of no great altitude (110 feet), but the proportions are excellent. It rises square and unbroken from the base to the parapet, where an oval window in each face breaks the cornice that finishes the elevation, and which, in consequence, sweeps over the head of these windows. A dome rises above the tower, crowned with a square lantern, open in each face, and finished with a low spire, ending in a ball and cross. The arch of entrance, which is on the north side, has a bold and handsome frontispiece, recessed in the manner of a niche. Viewing the tower and church from the open space in the front, the boldness of the design and the harmony of the parts will be apparent to every spectator. The graceful termination of the tower by its gradual and well-turned dome, leading by progressive steps to the cross at the apex, forms a correct and excellent finish to the square design, and gives to the entire structure that artificial height which the architects of our fine old steeples knew so well how to create in their designs. The eye, descending from the summit of the tower, catches the side walls of the church, and the oval dome behind; and here it will be seen how admirably the architect has preserved the leading feature of his design, which is a dome, throughout the whole of his composition. The loss of the tower will prove an irreparable injury to the church, which, denuded of this appropriate appendage, will appear mean and insignificant, and will in all probability, at no very distant period, receive a similar fate from the hands of some future band of improvers. A notice of the monuments, and some other particulars of this church, will be found in Gent. Mag. for March 1836, N.s., vol. V. p. 256. The backs of the houses in Sweeting's Rents, taken down for the improvements, abutted on the burying_ground attached to this church. These houses were partly built over the churchyard, being sustained on pillars, forming a kind of walk or cloister on one side of the open space constituting the burial ground. This mode of building will explain the meaning of cloisters, which are so often mentioned by Stowe as appertaining to the parish churches of London, as well as the term "jetty," so often met with in deeds and other documents relating to the city in its former state. The present modern colonnade has superseded the ancient cloisters with their superincumbent apartments; and the jetties, though in modern times laid into and forming part of the adjacent houses, are, in fact, held under distinct tenures. But these structures are not the only edifices dedicated to the purposes of religion, which will be injured by the Royal Exchange improvement. It is said that the French Protestant church in Threadneedle street is wholly or in part to be taken down. This structure, which is as large as a parish church, and fitted up in a similar style to the majority of the metropolitan churches, stands on the site of St. Anthony's Hospital, the chapel of which has remained in use by a congregation of foreign Protestants from the time of the dissolution. The three edifices which form the subject of this article are minutely described in Allen's London, vol. iii. pp. 200, 202, 220. The apathy with which the removal of St. Bartholomew's church has been regarded will be remembered and felt when perhaps the loss of this church will be found a trifle in comparison with the wholesale destruction to which ere long the churches of the metropolis may chance to be destined. E. I. C. THE following account of the death of Mrs. Foster, who underwent great persecution and imprisonment at York for the Roman Catholic faith, and to which her death was attributed, is extracted from a curious and interesting MS. kindly lent me by the present community of Syon Monastery at Lisbon. The volume contains a recital of the wanderings and personal treatment of the Bridgetine Nuns of Syon Monastery, at Isleworth, from the period of their second dissolution by Queen Elizabeth, to their settlement at Lisbon in 1594, the details of which will be found in my forthcoming History of that Monastery. Mrs. Foster was the mother of Mr. Foster, who, when the Bridgetine Nuns fled to the Continent, took upon himself the affairs of the community, found a convent for them at Rouen, and afterwards at the earnest entreaties of his friends, and of the Lady Abbess and convent, entered their order March 8th 1584, and was elected their Confessor-general. No notice is taken of the life and sufferings of Mrs. Foster, either in "Dodd's Church History," the "Memoirs of Missionary Priests," or in a book entitled "The Persecution, or Martyrs of England, written by a Jeronymite." Yours, &c. G. J. AUNGIER. "Mistress Foster, our Father's mother, was persecuted and apprehended upon two or three accounts, one of which was, because the town (York) wherein she dwelt was wholly Catholick and many of them reconciled to the Church; so that sometimes when the bell rung to service, the minister shut up the church doors because few or none came to his ministry or service, which was principally imputed to Mrs. Foster, who was charged to be so great and monstrous a papist, that the neighbours and towns there about were said to be led and perverted by her. Another reason was the continual alms she bestowed on the poor, especially on All Souls' day and such like times, whereby they proved her to be a notorious and bold maintainer of the old and superstitious popery and religion, and that she and her daughters, with Mrs. Clitherow and others, their companions, had already with their meetings and assemblies, and even at their gossiping and feasting, done much hurt in York, and would do much more if they were permitted. Hereupon Mrs. Clitherow was apprehended and afterwards executed ;* and Mrs. Foster with her two daughters, committed to prison, whose imprisonment Mrs. Frances and Mrs. Ann Foster, were being long and painful, and the prison standing over the great river Owse, on the middle of the bridge, and consequently cold, moist, and very unwholesome, and the corner wherein she was kept very little, close and uncomfortable, quite contrary to her nature and custom, her life was thereby shortened, and with divers infirmities occasioned by her prison she was brought to her end and death. which time she did not neglect through womanish fear and weakness, nor was she unmindful of the cause for which she died, but, stirred up with a devout and deep At *The subjoined account of the death of Mrs. Clitherow is extracted from a scarce work, entitled "Memoirs of Missionary Priests," vol. i. p. 189. This lady is not noticed in "Dodd's Church History." "On the 26th March 1586, Mrs. Margaret Clithero, whose maiden name was Middleton, a gentlewoman of a good family in Yorkshire, was pressed to death at York. She was prosecuted under that violent persecution raised in those times, by the Earl of Huntingdon, Lord President of the North. The crime she was charged with was relieving and harbouring priests. She refused to plead, that she might not bring others into danger by her conviction, or be accessary to the Jurymen's sins in condemning the innocent, and therefore, as the law appoints in such cases, she was pressed to death. She bore this cruel torment with invincible patience, often repeating in the way to execution, that this way to Heaven was as short as any other. Her husband was forced into banishment. Her little children, who wept and lamented for their mother, were taken up, and being questioned concerning the articles of their Religion, and answering as they had been taught by them, were severely whipped, and the eldest, who was but twelve years old, was cast into prison. Her life was written by the reverend and learned Mr. John Mush, her director, who, after many years labouring with great fruit in the English mission, after having suffered prisons and chains, and received even the sentence of death for his faith, died at length in his bed, in a good old age in 1617." Mr. John Mush, born in Yorkshire, wrote an account of the sufferings of Catholics in the northern parts of England.-Dodd's Church History, vol. ii. p. 115. GENT. MAG. VOL. XIII. 30 consideration thereof, she called for Dr. Darbyshire, then prisoner, and her ghostly Father, with the rest of the Catholicks in that jail, in whose presence she made a very zealous profession of her faith, and took them all for witness of it that she, being then in her full understanding and perfect senses, died there in the cause of Christ's Church, thanking God most humbly for it in a devout speech to that purpose. After this she called for the last sacraments, desiring the company to assist her with their prayers, and after she had received the said sacraments with great devotion and tears she desired her ghostly Father to write for her the following words: I, Ann Foster, though most unworthy of this grace of God, do die in the profession of the Catholick Faith, and likewise have received all the last Sacraments of the Catholick Church, and finally I am buried after the rite and with the ceremonies of the true Church of Christ, wherefore my last will and testament is this, that no minister nor any other such person have anything to do with my dead body.' And this writing, which was nothing else but a conformity to her faith and the cause of her imprisonment and death, she besought her ghostly Father to put in her hand when she was dead; who, considering her great zeal and blessed notion, satisfied her desire, which the minister of the parish and the hereticks, finding in her hand and reading it, it is almost incredible how they chafed at it, but especially the minister, who put the whole city in an uproar, and also complained to the Queen's council, and to the Earl of Huntingdon, a puritan, and the Queen's President in that city; he complained also to the Archbishop and the Dean and Chapter, and not only so, but most inhumanly caused the dead coarse to be brought out of prison and laid openly on the bridge in the common street, for all the world to gase and wonder at. In the mean season the President and Council, Archbishop and Chapter, were assembled about this bold and traitorous act (as they termed it) of writing her last will, and immediately sent for Mr. Foster, blaming him for this heinous trespass of his wife; to whom he answered, That he had not offended her Majesty in anything, and that he was not there when his wife died, which is all (said he) that I can say in this matter.' bridge on which she lay. Mr. Foster besought their honours to consider that she was but a woman, and, being now dead, never could offend them any more; whereat the Council was discontented, and asked him how he durst intreat for such a papist, and began to call him in question for his conscience, affirming that they knew well enough what he was, and would then have committed him, if some commissioners on the bench had not favoured him; notwithstanding all this he replied thus, That, whatever she was, she was his wife, and he bound by the law of God to love, honour, and protect her, and this being the last and least thing he could do for her, he humbly besought them to give him leave to bury her;' which request by friends present was at last agreed to in this manner, that he might take her out of the minister's power, and bury her where he would without any other solemnity than only to put her in the grave. Very glad was he of this licence, since they could not have done a greater benefit either to him or her, for he knew very well the great love and devotion she had to the Earl of Northumberland, who was martyred in York,* and buried in Holy Cross Church, whose grave Mr. Foster opened, and without any hindrance laid her with that blessed Martyr's relicks; and thus two of her earnest desires were in one instant fulfilled, according to the prophet in the 144th Psalm, Voluntatem timentium se faciet.' 'God will fulfill the desires of those that fear him.' One thing she desired was to be buried in the church where the foresaid martyr was laid, the other to be buried without any heretical ceremonies. This news of the manner of his mother's death was brought to our father in Rome, and was more fully related to him by her own ghostly father Mr. John Mush, who not long ago died a professed religious in Syon." MR. URBAN, Morley, near Leeds, March 4. THE publication of "The Correspondence of the Earl of Chatham" has stimulated the literary public to renewed exertions to unravel the mystery-who was Junius? In the Gentleman's Magazine for 1769, the first letter of Junius is introduced with this brief recommendation. "The following pages are written with a knowledge of public affairs beyond the line of ordinary in *Thomas seventh Earl of Northumberland, beheaded at York, after the rising of the Northern Earls, Aug. 22, 1572. formation, and are therefore submitted to the inspection of our readers." That time has not falsified the correctness of Mr. Urban's opinion, the succeeding volumes of that delightful periodical bear ample evidence. Your readers are aware, Mr. Urban, that the essays or letters of Junius were first printed in a daily newspaper, the Public Advertiser, published by Mr. Henry Sampson Woodfall. Immediately subsequent to the appearance of the last letter of Junius, Mr. H. S. Woodfall published the series of letters in two volumes, and the work came out under the inspection of Junius himself. In the preface Junius says, "The encouragement given to a multitude of spurious, mangled publications of Junius, persuades me that a complete edition, corrected and im proved by the author, will be favourably received. This edition contains all the letters of Junius, Philo-Junius, and of Sir William Draper and Mr. Horne to Junius, with their respective dates, and according to the order in which they appeared in the Public Advertiser." The public was satisfied with this explicit declaration of the author, until the year 1812, when Mr. George Woodfall, the son of the original printer, sent forth into the literary world, a volume, consisting of one hundred and ten letters, which he styled "The Miscellaneous Letters of Junius." The reputation of the father, the Woodfall of Junius, gave to the collection of Mr. George Woodfall a character which introduced it into the libraries of the admirers of Junius, and without exciting any suspicion, it was received as containing the genuine letters of Junius. The authenticity of the Miscellaneous Letters had never been questioned, until the year 1931. On referring to the Gentleman's Magazine, your readers will find a short, yet favourable, review of a small pamphlet, written expressly to prove that the Miscellaneous Letters were spurious. And in a second edition, published in 1833, the proofs of their being spurious are multiplied. title of the pamphlet is "Junius Lord Chatham, and the Miscellaneous Letters' proved to be spurious." The It may, perhaps, be useful if I give your readers a brief account of the different treatises on Junius, and the names of the presumed authors of those Letters, noticed in the volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine from the year 1769 to the present time. Twenty volumes of this Magazine had appeared, after 1769, before the slightest notice was taken, by any of its numerous correspondents, of the Letters of Junius. In 1789 one anonymous writer says, "Junius was no other than the late Thomas Hollis, Esq.;” another person points to Mr. Wilkes, and a third to Mr. Hart and Mr. Gerard Hamilton. In this year P. Thicknesse, Esq. publishes a work, "Junius Discovered." He names Mr. Horne Tooke. The question was allowed to rest for ten years, when, in 1798, Mr. Wilkes' claims are again revived, and Lord. G. Sackville, the Right Hon. W. G. Hamilton, Mr. Burke, and Mr. Dunning, are brought forward as competitors for the prize. 1799 introduces us to Mr. Hugh MacAulay, who assumed the name of Boyd, and a hint is given that Dr. Gilbert Stuart was Junius. 1800 brings before the public as a candidate the Rev. P. Rosenhagen, and then a second long respite is allowed to the shade of the great unknown, to be disquieted in the year 1812 by Mr. George Woodfall, who published an edition of the Letters of Junius, including others by the same writer, and under other signatures. The year 1813 is pregnant with competitorsLord Shelburne, Dr. Wilmot, Mr. Greatrake, and a small volume appears in support of Dr. Francis and his son Sir Philip Francis. We have also Mr. Roche's work, "proving that Mr. Burke was Junius." 1814 introduces but one pretender, Mr. Richard Glover. 1816. Sir P. Francis is again before the public, and would have occupied its undivided attention if Dr. Busby's "facts and arguments" had not distracted our notice-he "demonstrates that John Lewis De Lolme was Junius." But how vain are such facts, arguments, and demonstrations. De Lolme is rudely pushed aside; “William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, stand forth for thou art the man." 1817. "That profound and accomplished scholar, Sir William Jones," |