able Bede describes a church dedicated to the honour | closely resembles the font delineated by the old illuof St. Martin, in terms which leave little doubt that minators in representing the baptism of King Ethelbert, this was the identical church. After relating the fa- and it is believed to have been the very font in which vourable reception which King Ethelbert gave to the that first of our Christian kings was baptized. There Christian missionaries, Bede goes on to say, "He gave is better ground for believing it to be so than for them a dwelling-place in the city of Canterbury, which disbelieving the fact; and the belief is a far pleasanter was the metropolis of all his dominions, and pursuant thing than the unbelief. The interior of this church to his promise, besides allowing them their diet, per- has recently been restored by the taste and munificence mitted them to preach. It is reported, that as they of the Hon. Daniel Finch, and is now the most perfect drew near to the city, after their manner, with the and beautiful image of an antique oratory that can be Holy Cross, and the image of the great King, our Lord seen anywhere. The abominations of pews have been Jesus Christ, they, in concert, sung this litany or entirely got rid of; their place is supplied with prayer: 'We beseech thee, O Lord, in all thy mercy, beautiful seats and reading-desks of carved oak; that thy anger and wrath be turned away from this stained glass has been placed in all the windows, city, and from thy holy house, because we have sinned. giving, in its utmost perfection, that dim religious light Hallelujah.' There was on the east which was loved by Milton, and which all people of side, near the city, a church dedicated to the honour taste and feeling love in such edifices; the walls have of St. Martin, formerly built whilst the Romans were been scraped, cleared of their accumulated coatings of still in the island, wherein the Queen, who, as has plaster and whitewash, and there is a purity and cleanbeen said before, was a christian, used to pray. In liness so perfect as to be a part of the beauty of holithis they at first began to meet to sing, to pray, to say ness. An inner open iron door, of exquisite workmanmass, to preach, and to baptise, till the king being ship, has been added. The carving in the chancel is converted to the faith, they had leave granted them admirable, and in the true old taste. Not only this more freely to preach, and build or repair churches in carving, but almost everything else, has been done by all places. Nor was it long before he worthy artizans of Canterbury. With proper encou gave his teachers a settled place in his metropolis of ragement, these men might rival workmanship of the Canterbury, with the necessary possessions in several best times, and erect and decorate churches equal to sorts." Wordsworth has the following fine sonnet on those of the age of Henry VII.* In the chancel there this inspiring subject; but the touching simplicity is a plain marble monument with a very long inscripof the narrative of the monk of Jarrow can scarcely tion, to Sir John Finch, who was Lord Keeper of the be heightened in its effect upon the mind :Seals, and acting as Lord Chancellor to Charles I., when the war broke out between that sovereign and the Parliament. The dirty neglected state in which this monument of his ancestor had long been left, was pointed out to the Hon. Daniel Finch, now auditor to the Dean and Chapter of Christ Church, Canterbury. Mr. Finch saw with regret that everything about the church was as much neglected as the monument. The stained glass was all gone; the roof was scarcely weather-tight; the floor was raised irregularly above its proper level: but for the deal pews, and the painted deal pulpit, and the paltry communion-table, the place might have been taken for a stable. Setting to work with that earnestness which conquers difficulty, bringing into action all his artistic taste, and sparing no pains and no expense, Mr. Finch soon remedied all this; and he has just completed his admirable reparation and restoration. (Cut, No. 3.) Were there nothing else worth "For ever hallowed be this morning fair; Blest be the unconscious shore on which ye tread; The pictured Saviour!- By Augustin led, They come and onward travel without dread, Sung for themselves, and those whom they would free! Of Ignorance, that ran so rough and high, According both to chronicle and tradition, the good christian queen Bertha was buried in the church. On one side of the chancel there is a recess in the wall, arched over head, and having within it an old stone coffin, or sarcophagus, of the simplest make. This has been for many ages pointed out as the tomb of the good Bertha; and we see no substan-seeing in or near to Canterbury, a visit to St. Martin's tial reason for doubting that it may have been so. The structure of the church is primitively simple: it is a small oblong building, consisting of a chancel and nave, with no columns, with a plain pointed roof, and a low square tower, beautifully overgrown on the outside with ivy. It is indeed the very beau-ideal of a painter's country church. The font is certainly one of the first that was ever made in England: it has no stand, but rests on the ground; it is about three feet high, and capacious within; the sculptures upon it are a sort of ornamental interlacings in low relief. It Church would repay the traveller for a journey of a hundred miles. There are three small brasses in the Church. The churchyard, with which great pains have also been taken, is beautiful and poetical, having several fine old yew trees and rich green sward, gently sloping to the plain. Some trees which intercepted the prospect have been cut away, and now there is a magnificent view from the church porch, and from * The chief management of the work was under the direction of Messrs. J. and G. Lancefield (father and son) of Canterbury, who have recently restored Goodnestone Church, and who have now three other old churches to restore-Frittenden, Thannington, and Staple-all in this part of Kent, When the heathen trumpets' clang Round beleaguer'd Chester rang.'” nearly every part of the churchyard, of the glorious towers of Canterbury Cathedral, and of a good portion of the picturesque city. Formerly a public foot-path ran Old Saint Mildred's Church, with its flints and through the churchyard; and noisy boys, and pigs, and Roman bricks, its leaning gables, and its perpendicular sheep, and village asses, rambled at their will among windows, and its cool avenues of lime-trees, would the grave-stones, spoiling and desecrating the place. merit description; and so would several others of the After long disputes, and some litigation, Mr. Finch smaller churches, if we had space and time for it. But succeeded in arranging that this path should be closed, the lover of ecclesiastical antiquities, in visiting Canthat a slip of ground should be taken from the church-terbury, will find out all these places. yard, and given up to the public, and that a new footpath should run outside the churchyard walls. Turf has been nicely laid down wherever the hillock had been laid bare; and a fine winding gravel path has been made. That everything should be complete, as in the olden time, Mr. Finch has erected a Lich-Gate at the entrance into the churchyard: it is built of fine solid oak, and may stand for centuries. The LichGate, or, to translate the Saxon into English-the Gate of the Dead,' or 'Death Gate,' formerly stood at the entrance of every churchyard; and it was customary to rest the corpse under it for a time sufficient to allow a part of the prayers for the dead to be said over it. Of late we have several times passed whole hours in this beautifully holy church and this tranquil sunny churchyard, and have never left it without feeling our hearts the better for the visit. A writer in 'Old England' thus moralizes on this most remarkable of our churches :—“Venerated, then, be the spot upon which stands the little church of St. Martin. It is a pleasant spot, on a gentle elevation. The lofty towers and pinnacles of the great Cathedral rise up at a little distance; the County Infirmary and the County Prison stand about it. It was from this little hill, then, that a sound went through the land, which, in a few centuries, called up those glorious edifices which attest the piety and the magnificence of our forefathers; which, in our own days, has raised up institutions for the relief of the sick and the afflicted poor; but which has not yet banished those dismal abodes which frown upon us in every great city, where society labours, and labours in vain, to correct and eradicate crime by restraint and punishment. Something is still wanting to make the teaching which, more than twelve centuries ago, went forth throughout the land from this church of St. Martin, as effectual as its innate purity and truth ought to render it. The teaching has not, even to this day, penetrated the land. It is heard at stated seasons in consecrated places; it is spoken about in our parishschools, whence a scanty knowledge is distributed amongst a rapidly-increasing youthful population, in a measure little adapted to the full and effectual banishment of ignorance. Our schools are few; our prisons are many. The work which Augustine and his followers did is still to do; but it is a work which a State that has spent eight hundred millions in war thinks may yet be postponed. The time may come, if that work be postponed too long, when the teachers of Christian knowledge may as vainly strive against the force of the antagonist principle, as the monks of Bangor strove, with prayer and anthem Besides the magnificent monastery of St. Augustine, of which much remains, and of which a good deal must be said presently, there are in Canterbury and its vicinage the remains of several monastic establishments, and of cells, hermitages, and lone chapels. The Grey Friars, who settled in Canterbury in A.d. 1220, had their dwelling in the south-western part of the city, southward from St. Peter's-street, where, among the meads and garden grounds, are to be seen some walls and ruined arches which once belonged to their house. Their church has been so entirely destroyed that the site of it can only be conjectured. Weever, the historian of old monuments, has preserved the names of many men of note who were buried within it: among them was Bartholomew Lord Badlesmere, steward to King Edward the Second's household, who was hanged for rebellion, in 1321, at the edge of the Blean Wood, near the city. The Black Friars, who settled in Canterbury in the year 1217, being the first of King Henry the Third's reign, had their convent, or priory, on the opposite or north side of St. Peter'sstreet. Of this building a good deal yet remains, but it has been formed into houses and tenements, and part of the hall is now occupied as a Baptist meetinghouse, and another portion has been turned into a Unitarian chapel. Some of the low arrow-headed arches continue to be picturesque, in spite of all that has been done to spoil them and their adjuncts. Formerly the priory had three beautiful gates, but these have entirely disappeared. The nunnery of St. Sepulchre, some ruins of which are still visible, stood in the eastern suburb of the city, about a quarter of a mile from the ancient Ridingate, and almost upon the ancient Roman road, called Watling Street. It was founded by Archbishop Anselm, about the year 1100. In the ground behind these ruins several Roman sepulchral urns have been dug up, which seems to indicate that the spot had been used as a burying-place before the introduction of Christianity. In this nunnery Elizabeth Barton, the far-famed Holy Maid of Kent who so sorely disquieted King Henry VIII. by her visions and prophecies, and who was executed at Tyburn for treason, together with several of her accomplices, was a veiled nun and votaress. The hospitals and alms-houses were very numerous, and of very old foundation. Archbishop Langfrane founded two-St. John's Hospital, for diseased men and women, near Northgate, in A.D. 1084; and the Hospital of St. Nicholas, at Harbledown, on the London Road, about a mile from the Westgate, in or about the same year. At St. John's, the ruins which exist show it to have been an extensive and fine edifice. The semicircular-headed doorway of the chapel is preserved; and there are two or three small old arches. The old spits, from 8 to 10 feet long, may still be handled in the kitchen. Great havoc has been made here since the commencement of the last century; old Somner speaks with transport of the "quire window "-" a very brave window," having in so many panes every of the twelve apostles pourtrayed, with the several articles of the creed that they are said to make;" but the visitor will now look in vain for this brave window, and its painted glass. St. Nicholas at Harbledown stands upon a most lovely spot of ground, elevated, wooded, and affording some delightful prospects. It was intended by its founder for a lazar-house, or a place of reception for such persons as suffered from the horrible and then common malady, the leprosy. The old chapel, though much neglected within, remains entire, and has suffered little or no alteration since the end of the eleventh century, when it was built. With its ivy and its wild wallflowers, its cool grey stone, and its rents and seams, it is eminently picturesque. From it you look right down into a chasm through which the old London road passes, and has passed for many ages. Erasmus, in his Peregrinatio Religionis,' written about the year 1510, mentions this hollow road, and the hospital above it. "Og. In the road to London, not far from Canterbury, is a way, extremely hollow, as well as narrow, and also steep, the bank being on each side so craggy that there is no escaping; nor can it by any means be avoided. On the left side of the Road is an Almshouse of some old men, one of whom runs out as soon as they perceive a horseman approaching, and after sprinkling him with holy water, offers him the upper leather of a shoe, bound with brass, in which a piece of glass is set like a gem. This is kissed, and money given him. Me. I had rather have an almshouse of old men on such a road than a troop of sturdy robbers. Og. As Gratian (the learned Dr. John Colet, Dean of St. Paul's, etc.) rode on my left hand, nearer to the almshouse, and so he was sprinkled with the water; to this he submitted; but when the shoe was held out for him to kiss it, he asked what it meant. And on being told it was the shoe of St. Thomas à Becket, he was sore provoked. . . . . I took compassion on the old man, and gave him some money, by way of consolation." The shoe of the saint and martyr has long since disappeared. The hospital has an old maple pole, with a medallion fastened to the bottom, representing Guy Earl of Warwick killing the dragon. The medal has also an inscription in Gothic and scarcely legible characters. The original buildings of the hospital are gone, and those which remain are falling fast to ruin. They are of no great antiquity, but have been slightly built. They are low, and stand in a row, or in rows, like our modern almshouses; and almshouses they now are and have been for some centuries. By the statutes of Archbishop Jackson, who was the restorer of this establishment, lodging, and fuel, and a certain annual sum of money, were to be given to thirty poor honest men, and to thirty poor women. The number has gradually been decreased; there are not now more than fifteen men and fifteen women lodged here, and of money these have received very little. According to popular report, the funds of the charity, which arise from farms, and some wood in the Blean, have been and are notoriously mismanaged; but as we have not investigated the matter, we cannot affirm this for fact. We only regret that the hospital should have been allowed to go to such decay. There is a talk of rebuilding. Lately they knocked down five of the houses; but the old bricks and mortar encumber the ground, and nothing yet has been done in the way of rebuilding. The old people that are there cultivate some pretty garden-ground. All the ground there is hallowed by legends and traditions. There is a well of mineral water, called through long ages the Well of the Black Prince; the tradition being that that warlike prince in his declining health sought a cure by drinking that water. The well is ancient and primitive, lying under the green hill side. At a few yards from it there is another well, or spring-head, which affords delicious water. From the North Foreland to Greenwich Park, from Sheerness to Hawkhurst -through the length and breadth of pleasant Kent, you may look in vain for a spot pleasanter than Harbledown. The hospital of St. Lawrence, which was founded towards the middle of the twelfth century, stood a little to the east of the nunnery of St. Sepulchre's. It was the asylum for the sick brothers of the great monastery of St. Augustine, and was opened to their distressed relatives. A part of one of its walls is still erect, with a rude sculpture representing St. Lawrence on his gridiron. street. stand in a lane leading from Castle-street to that quiet The priory of St. Gregory was another foundation of Archbishop Langfranc: it was intended for infirm men and women, and regular canons of the order of St. Augustine had charge of it. It is supposed to be the first house of regular canons in this kingdom. The establishment is mentioned in Doomsday-book. Its site was between Northgate-street and the new Military-road, and is now almost covered with modern buildings. A small part of the priory is, however, still to be traced; and, in Gostling's time, or about seventy years ago, there was a good deal more of it standing. "The ground belonging to its precinct," says Gostling, "is almost entirely laid out in gardens for our market. The chapel of St. Thomas (whose ruins are, or were lately, all there) had over the door at the west end of it a handsome old arch which the archbishop's lessee took down some years ago, to make a portal to his own dwelling-house at St. Thomas'shill; but that being sold and rebuilt, the Rev. Mr. Brockman, by adapting the front of one of his outbuildings to it, has preserved this piece of antiquity, and added to the beauties of his seat at Beachborough, near Hythe." There has been but too much of this removing and appropriating: many of the muniments and relics of these old hospitals - having no one to look after them-have been abstracted, sold and bartered, and are now locked up in private collections. The Bridewell, or poor priest's hospital, stands in Lamb-lane, not far from the south side of the HighIt was first founded about the year 1240, by Simon Langton, archdeacon of Canterbury, and brother to the great archbishop of that name; but the archdeacon was assisted by the alms and contributions of several devout and pious persons. This hospital, intended as a place of succour and relief for poor priests -"chaplains, curates, and other like unbeneficed clerks”—escaped the general dissolution, and remained unsuppressed down to the time of Queen Elizabeth, who took the surrender of it from the master, and the archbishop, and the dean and chapter of Canterbury, and turned it into a workhouse. It has since served both as a prison and a poor-house, and it is now the city workhouse. The buildings have been much Of the house of the Knights Templars, which stood altered. At first it was a structure of wood. In under the town wall, in a place called Water Lock-lane, 1373 it was built anew of stone. In successive repairs which led by Northgate church down to the river, near each age put in something of its own style and taste, the Abbott's mill, nothing remains. The Black without any regard to the original style of building. Prince's chantrey, which stood near to the eleemosyMaynard's or Mayner's Hospital, is of ancient founda-nary of the monastery of Christ Church, has been tion, but the present buildings are not very old. They equally obliterated: even the comparative modern |