large as to continue five months. For my part my feet were sore six whole months. This made one of our missionaries say, that " as difficult as the language was to learn, it cost him a great deal more to learn how to walk, than how to speak."

Would you believe it? It will cost you quite as much to learn how to sit in the manner of the Indians. Their custom is to sit on the ground with crossed legs. This posture is very painful to those who are not accustomed to it. If it was to last for a quarter of an hour only, it would be nothing, but you have to remain in that position for four hours together, and sometimes more, without changing your situation. The Indians would be scandalized if you were to extend out your leg, or discover any uneasiness in the posture. Yet time accustoms you to it, and I think it is the most natural of all postures.

Lastly, the greatest and most grievous trial in this mission is the time of sickness, and that state of abandonment to which you are then reduced. You must expect to see yourself then deprived of all human help, in a little hut, lying upon two or three boards, surrounded only by three or four Indians, just as St. Francis Xavier was, when he died in the island of Sancien. It is not that India wants skilful physicians, but they remain in the cities, which they never leave for fear of losing their practice. Besides, if we could prevail on them to come and visit us, we should not like to do it; for they are very bigotted to their science, and still more to their superstitions, so that they seldom prescribe any remedy which is not accompanied with some superstition or other. The village doctors are more docile, but so ignorant that you risk more by consulting them than by going without them. Again, as we are obliged to subject ourselves to the manner of living among the Indians when we are well, we are equally forced to make use of their remedies when we are ill. Now the most famous prescription of the Indian medicine is a total abstinence from all things, even water. This extravagant diet, if I may call it so, is often much more cruel than the malady itself. Yet the sickman dare not complain, for you would greatly disedify the Indians, and astonish them too, if they saw that you had less command over yourself than any woman among them, who kept this strict fast for seven or eight days together.

(To be continued.)

PERAMBULATION THROUGH LONDON.

・

LETTER VII.

SIR,-To day we will commence our walk at the noble palace of the bishop of Ely, and passing by the inn, or London lodging of the prior of Semperhingham, enter Smithfield by Cow-lane, when turning a few paces to the right, we shall face the hospital built in 1102, by a courtier, in the reign of king Henry the first, named Bahere," a pleasant witty gentleman," who was also the founder and first prior of the neighbouring monastery. He nominated, as proctor for the poor, Alfune, the same who endowed the church of St. Giles at Cripplegate; and this religious man attended with so much earnestness to the duties of his office, that he went daily to the shambles and other frequented spots, soliciting alms; and by quoting appropriate texts from holy writ, he raised, from the compassion and charity of the public, abundant supplies for the maintenance of his poor charge. King Edward the third afterwards confirmed in the twenty-sixth year of his reign this charitable foundation. And the relict of William Hardell obtained from Henry the third an adjoining piece of land twenty feet square

to build a recluse or ankorage." The priory, which was erected about the same time as the hospital, stood a little more to the east, and was dedicated to God and to St. Bartholomew. Rahere placed in it canons, became their superior and retained his office until his death. His monument was renewed by Bolton the last prior, and is still to be seen in the church nearly in a perfect state. "There was an old custome," says Howell, "in London, that schoolmasters should meet on festival daies, and their schollers should dispute in logic, as well as in grammar, questions and principles, and the most common rendezvous was St. Bartholomew's, in Smithfield, where upon a bank boorded under a tree, they used to meet, and the best schol lers were rewarded with bows and arrows of silver, which they carried away as prizes. But that laudable custome is grown obsolete, and quite discontinued. To this priory king Henry the second granted the priviledge of a fair to be kept at Bartho

lomew tide for three days, to wit, the eve, the day, and the next morrow, to the which the clothiers of England and drapers of London repaired, and had their booths and standings within the churchyard of the priory, closed with walls and gates, locked every night, and watched for safety of men's goods and wares." Many vestiges of this priory are still re maining; the cloisters, which are 95 feet long, and 15 feet wide, are now converted into a stable: great part of the church is probably the same which Rahere himself erected, and is a good specimen of the ecclesiastical architecture of the twelfth century.

We have already in our first letter noticed the magnificent church of the Grey friars: we shall therefore pass by their vast and extensive monastery and enclosure, situated at the back of the hospital, and bend our course up St. John-street for some distance, when we will incline a little to our left, and visit the convent of Benedictine nuns at Clerkenwell. This house was founded in the year 1100 by a baron of considerable wealth and reputation, Jordan Brisset, and his wife Muriell. They dedicated it to the honour of God and the assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary. Its revenues were encreased by Richard Beaveyes, bishop of London; and the foundation was afterwards confirmed by king Henry the second. The last prioress of this house was Isabella Sackville; she requested in her will, make a short time before her death, that her body might be buried in the church of her late convent. This lady must have lived to a very advanced age; for it appears that she was a nun in the priory at Clerkenwell, in the 21st year of the reign of Henry the seventh, and she died in the 12th year of Elizabeth. The church of this convent passed through several hands, and was at length purchased by the parishioners for their parochial church. The following extracts from the register book will shew that the practice of excommunication was not unknown, even in the tolerating reign of the godly Elizabeth: 1596,-paid unto Mr. Dr. Stanhope for an excommacion that he sent against Mr. Trappes and myself, 5s. 3d.” "Given unto Mr. Dr. Stanhope for his paynes in coing. to our church, 10s." Paid at Mr. Dr. Stanhopes office for that we were excommunicated 2s. 4d.” “Paid delivering in of the article in ac

agne. for which we are excomated. 6s. "The devout Brisset intending afterwards to found a house for the knights of St. John of Jerusalem, made an exchange with the nuns, and bestowed upon them twenty acres of land at a distance from London, for ten acres situated in the vicinity of their priory; upon these he laid the foundations of the intended religious structure and donations coming in, from all quarters, the buildings were completed, and "In ye yere of Christe, as I have the words from an old MS,"1185, ye vi ides of Merch, ye dominical letter F. ye chyrche of ye hospital of St. Johns Jerusalem, was dedicated to ye honor of St. John Baptiste, by ye worshypfull fader Araclius, patriarke, of ye altre of St. John evangelist, by ye same patryarke." Vide Weaver. This priory flourished in repute and wealth, until the latter end of the reign of Henry the eighth, when that rapacious monarch abolished the house, and appropriated the funds to his own use, after he had settled an annuity upon each knight, and had accorded one thousand pounds per annum to the prior, who however never received any part of this grant, for upon learning the final dissolution of his house, he suddenly expired through excessive grief. The revenues of this splendid foundation were valued in the king's books at 33857. 19s. 8d. of ancient yearly rent. The church, during the life of the king, was used as a storehouse for tents, nets, and other implements used in the royal hunts; yet degraded as it was, its final destruction was undetermined until "In 3 Edw. VI, the church for the most part, with the great bell-tower, (a most curious piece of workmanship, graven, gilt, and enamelled to the great beautifying of the city, (says Stow) was undermined and blown up with gunpowder, the stone whereof was employed in building the lord protector's house in the Strand."

We now come to THE CHARTER HOUSE, celebrated by our annalists, for the steady resistance the pious inmates offered to the spiritual encroachments of the sacrilegious Henry; for their edifying demeanour under persecution; and for the constancy with which they braved the terrors of death when commanded to abjure the faith of their ancestors. It has also subsequently attracted notice, in consequence of the munificence of Thomas Sutton, a wealthy merchant who lived in the

reign of James the first. He purchased the remains of this religious edifice, and endowed it with funds amply sufficient to support a school, and maintain a certain number of poor brethren. A raging pestilence ravaging the metropolis in the 23d year of king Edward the third, the churches and burial grounds of London were not sufficiently capacious to receive the dead who were brought for interment. To remedy the evil, Sir Walter Manny, a man highly esteemed by his sovereign, and universally beloved by every class of society, for he was a good soldier, a prudent statesman, and a devout christian, purchased about thirteen acres of land called Spittlecroft; these he converted into an immense cemetery, which he procured to be blessed by Ralph Stafford, bishop of London, and in less than a single year upwards of 50,000 bodies were deposited within its walls. He then caused a chapel to be erected, offerings to be received, and masses said for the repose of the souls of this multitude of deceased Christians: and about the year 1371, he founded a house for Carthusian monks upon the same site. This monastery he denominated the Salutation. We shall advert to the sufferings which many of the religious brethren of this pious establishment underwent, for their attachment to the ancient faith, when we retrace our route, which our paper reminds us it is already time to do, although our progress on this day has been very limited. We shall therefore only remark, that at the top of Aldersgatestreet, queen Catherine of Arragon, the first wife of Henry the eighth, erected a chapel, and called it Mount Calvery, upon the same mound where a wind-mill had formerly stood, and which had been blown down in a tempest. This chapel existed but a short time before it was suppressed. Now let us return to Smithfield, a spot recorded in the early days of English history, as a scene of pastimes and of amusements, of masks and of tournaments, but which was converted by the merciless Henry into a field of slaughter. Here the aged confessor of queen Catherine, the venerable Forest, was s. spended from a gibbet over a fire by a chain, which was fastened round his waist and to shew a palpable mark of disrespect to the old religion, a crucifix of a gigantic size had been purposely brought from Wales to furnish fuel for the fire into which,