Philippa's Court and the rich city dames. And whilst we cast a lingering glance at these heaped-up luxuries, we thank our stars our own good wives have stayed at the Tabard along with the Prioress and her lap-dogs, else would our purses be lighter than we choose to have them! See how, in the hazy light, the Court ladies, looking like ghosts in their trailing garments and their strange head-dresses, wastefully spend their husbands' gold on useless tissues and Venetian gauzes fine as cobwebs, which cost a ransom for a yard, can only serve once or twice, and are then inevitably cast aside! These Lombard merchants, it is reported, surpass the Jews in cunning and usury, and some great ladies are said to be so completely in their clutches, by reason of the great debts they have incurred for finery and suchlike trumpery, that they scarce dare call their lives their own, and are slaves to these foreigners, who act as go-betweens in clandestine negotiations with themselves and their husbands, for the selling of State secrets, the raising of loans, and the pledging of jewels and plate. The common folk hold these merchants to be, not what they pretend-Pope's men-but the old Jews the King has turned out, come back with new names.

In Eastcheap we find a very different scene. In Poultry we stumble over baskets of hens, ducks and geese, and are deafened by the screeching of all the birds that fly beneath the heavens. At the booths in and about the Cheap a man may buy everything that is sold on earth, new clothes and old, crockery and herbs, tinware and laces, cakes and beer, bread and meat; but it is a noisy place, i'faith, where cooks are for ever preparing roasts and stews, and the air reeks with a wholesome scent of crackling. The Cheap is the very beginning and end of the world, and of a bright morning every sort of man and woman that God has created-good, bad, and indifferent, honest and dishonest, saints and sinners-may there be met. Here's a friar mounted on a barrel, preaching the way to Heaven; and yonder, a man in the stocks, put there for selling light measure of bread, at whom the people, roaring with laughter, are pelting all the rotten eggs they can lay their hands on, and doubtless paying off a few old scores. So zealously do they work that the poor wretch is as yellow as saffron already, and howling dismally, being badly cut and much maltreated.

And here, by way of contrast, comes a lengthy procession, this time of monks, bedesmen, guildsmen, and women with tapers in their hands, psalm-singing, preceding an image of Our Lady of Joy, borne under a canopy of flowers by maidens crowned with roses. As the cortège passes, the buyers and the sellers cease their chatter, oaths die on rough lips, and the unseemly jest halftold will not be finished till Our Lady has passed on well out of sight.

But at last we reach Paul's, the mightiest cathedral in England. We make our way into the vast building by the western door, gazing first at the three stately gates, the centre one of which has massive pillars of brass to which the leaves of the great doors are fastened. When our eyes become accustomed to the rich light falling through the splendid windows, we are lost in wonderment at the exceeding majesty of the longest and finest nave of any church in Christendom. Like all great Norman naves, it is at once very grand and very simple, albeit the sturdy Norman pillars have been lately masked by groups of slender graceful columns. The nave has twelve bays, and measures nearly 300 feet from the entrance to the first of the four huge clustered columns that support the tower. The roof above us is 93 feet in height - the chancel and choir about 10 feet loftier; these too have twelve bays, and, with the Lady Chapel, make an unbroken vista of nearly 700 feet1 of column and arch, focussed by the worldfamous Rose Window in the eastern end, considered the most beautiful and the largest in Europe. Filled with the jewelled glass peculiar to the thirteenth century, it gleams and glows like a huge brooch set with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires. So high is the vault above it, and so lost in shadow, that we cannot exactly guess the material of which it is constructed; most probably it is built of wood. Presently we perceive a large aperture in the roof, which is used at Whitsuntide, as we are

1 Dugdale says the length of the building was 690 feet, breadth 130 feet, height of roof 102 feet, height of roof of new fabric 88 feet, height of spire from level ground 260 feet, height of wooden spire 274 feet; total 520 feet. Mr. Edmund B. Ferrey, who drew his conclusions from Hollar's plans, considered Dugdale's figures untrustworthy, and fixed the length of the church at 596 feet, breadth 104 feet, height of vault 93 feet, of choir roof 104 feet, height of steeple 285 feet, height of spire 208 feet.

informed by an amiable little cleric in a long white cassock, who has joined us and offered to be our cicerone, to admit a white pigeon, let down by a wire at High Mass to symbolise the Holy Ghost. He points to the Rood loft spanning the chancel arch, and tells us that whilst the dove is fluttering down, a chorister, dressed as an angel with golden wings, appears under the enormous Crucifix of the Rood, swinging a great silver censer and wafting a most pleasing perfume into the church below. In the stupendous nave are many tombs :-tombs of knights who have fought in the Crusades, or in the late French wars; most of them with their helmets, spears, shields, and other panoply of battle, suspended above their recumbent effigies; tombs of the olden bishops, who blessed London in late Saxon and early Norman times; tombs of gallant warriors and stately dames, of rich burghers and merchants, prelates and scholars. Our attention is particularly directed to the ancient tombs of the Saxon kings -Seba and Etheldred-and to the superb monuments of Bishop Eustachius de Frauconbridge and of Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, who reclines cross-legged upon his altar-tomb with his helmet and spear affixed above him.

Presently our friendly cleric opens a door to the right, near the western entrance, and admits us immediately into the parish Church of St. Gregory, which was incorporated in the Cathedral a hundred years before this time. Here stands a rich image of the holy Pope who first sent Augustine to preach the Faith amongst us. Having recited an Ave, Pater, and Credo in his honour, we continue along the nave in company of our guide, till we reach the space below the central tower, when we obtain a fine view of the nave and choir, and of the two rather short transepts, slightly out of proportion to the rest of the church, both with noble entrances from the churchyard. From this point of vantage we can admire the rows of superb windows, filled with magnificent stained glass, that so happily subdues the otherwise garish whiteness of the stone of which the Cathedral is built. Near the door of the south transept we enter the Chapel of St. John the Evangelist, where, upon the altar, stands a solid silver image of the beloved Apostle, before which many silver lamps or "Lights" burn day and night; yet a few paces farther on, a flight of seven steps admits us into the small, but exceedingly