out in coals for their use. As an addition to this foundation, Mrs. Alice Smith, widow, devised lands to the amount of 157. a year; which, with the above mentioned benefaction, being greatly increased in their revenues, the Skinners' Company, who are the trustees, rebuilt the house, and augmented the pensions.

ST. HELEN'S PLACE, a very handsome pile of buildings now erecting, covers the remainder of the ancient nunnery of St. Helen; a very great portion of the remains of which was exhibited in LEATHERSELLERS' HALL, which was also a Dissenting meeting house. The whole has been demolished, and replaced by the structures abovementioned.

THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST. ETHELBURGA.

THE lady who is denominated the patron saint of this church was sister of St. Erkonwald, bishop of London. Her brother having built for himself the monastery of Chertsey, in Surrey, founded for her another at Barking, in Essex. Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History, mentions a number of miraculous interpositions in favour of her and her sisterhood, of which at this day we have no occasion to make particular mention.

This church, one of the smallest within the city, is supposed to be of the architecture in the reigns of Henry V. and VI. The south wall has four lancet windows; on the north side two are blocked up. The pulpit is ancient; and on the south side is a gallery, which was erected by Mr. Owen Saintpeer, churchwarden in 1629, "only for the daughters and maid servants of this parish to sit in.”

At the east end is a large arched window, with the crest of the Mercers' Company, the arms of the City, and of the companies of Sadlers and Brewers, in painted glass.

The altar-piece is neatly ornamented with six Corinthian pilasters, entablatures, &c. The monuments are to the memory of John Cornelius Linchebeck, of London, merchant, 1655. Rev. William Price, nearly eighteen years rector, died 1749. Mr. and Mrs. Waghorn, he died, 1789; she died 1768. Thomas Pestill, a constant resident in the house wherein he was born, in this parish, to the age of sixty years, 1799.

The external appearance of the church has undergone very material alterations. When it was engraved by Toms, in 1736, it had projecting shops on each side of the pointed door; over the door was a pent house, with a bulustrade, behind was a flat arched Gothic window, over which a dial projected into the street; the steeple was of board, with square pillars, the capitals supporting a window, in which was the Sanctus bell, vulgarly called the Saint's bell*. It is at present, a plain front, stuccoed over, having a window, with a clock, and a small turret; but contains nothing further worthy of notice.

The length of the church is fifty-four feet, the breadth twenty-five, and the altitude thirty-one feet. It is a rectory of small value, in the gift of the bishop of London.

MARINE SOCIETY OFFICE.

This is a large, plain building, the first stone of which was laid on the 30th of April 1773, by the then president,

* The Sanctus Bells were formerly affixed in every church, and usually rang when the host was exalted, as a signal for devotion throughout the parish, at the words "Holy, holy, holy, &c." 3 I

VOL. II. No. 45.

Lord

Lord Romney, attended by the governors, and twenty of the boys, who carried various banners on the occasion.

This patriotic institution originated from the benevolent plans of Mr. Hicks, a Hamburgh merchant, who justly considered that he could not better benefit his country, than by rendering useful to the community, in supplying the navy, those youths, the infamy of whose parents, or their own distresses, had consigned them to the most vicious pursuits. He therefore printed and circulated one thousand recommendatory pamphlets, and generously commenced a subscription, by presenting a considerable sum towards the establishment of the infant institution, and by bequeathing, in 1762, by will, for its further support, no less than 20,000l.!

The utility of the establishment was so striking, that in 1757, the profits of a representation of the Suspicious Husband was given by Mr. Garrick to the society, which produced 2717. 2s. A benefit given by the proprietors of Ranelagh House, amounted to 5021. 7s. ; and another at the Opera House, Haymarket, 591. 8s. A circumstance occurred, highly to the honour and liberality of those concerned in the Drury Lane benefit. The performers acted gratis; but the renters, who were then forty in number, required to be paid as usual, to prevent the establishment of a precedent, which might eventually injure their property, and each person received his two shillings; but shortly afterwards one of them, Mr. Clutterbuck, paid into the hands of Justice Fielding, an active promoter of the interests of the society, the sum of 291. 8s. as the contribution of the renters, to which he generously added 127. 12s. as his own additional subscription.

But the society's intentions, next to Mr. Hicks, were indebted to the active and unceasing labours of the excellent philanthropist JONAS HANWAY, Esq. and we cannot better describe the great utility of the Marine Society, than in his own energetic words, addressed to his friend Charles Gray, Esq. of Colchester:

"The Committee of our Society," fays he, "as you will learn from their secretary, has received the boys you sent them: one of

them

Ahem altered his mind, and was returned to his home. You will approve of our great caution; not even to persuade, where there seems to be any particular tenderness in a boy's turn of mind, which fits him for the labours of peace, rather than the rigors of war. Our zealous friends of this society go on with their useful, pious, and great undertaking. We have now clothed and fitted out 4500 men, and 3000 boys. We ransack the three kingdoms for every boy that is not useful on shore; also for such as are ambitious to try their fortune at sea, their parents recommending them for this pur pose; and above all, for those whose wretchedness makes them ready to accept the effered bounty. Of the last you may imagine the number is not so great as it was, and yet I fear there will be too many of them, so long as the effects of the first transgression remain. We have received many from Edinburgh, and now we are promised one hundred stout lads by the Marine Society of Dublin, the gentlemen who compose that society having engaged also to clothe them.

"You have heard that the City of London has lately given 5001. to our Society. This we consider as a mark of great honour, as well as a most seasonable supply; for as high as we figure in the esteem of a great number of people, there are also many who are not yet acquainted with us, or I think we should have received some marks of their good-will. Those who know that there are many distressed objects from all quarters, to whom raiment is pleasure, health, and life, and wish to see the Navy recruited with such persons as are least useful on shore, and whom this Society is instrumental in calling forth from obscurity, will yet give us aid. I am well persuaded, that the gay and happy, who will humble themselves to visit our Committee, over the Royal Exchange, on Thursdays, and see our boys in their whole garb of wretchedness, will not let us want for money.

"We have glorious examples before us of men in office. We also must show a spirit equal to our enterprize. Let us do nothing by halves the pleasure of seeing the war pushed on with vigor, should animate this business also; though very small, compared with the general great object of the nation, it is very important in its effects; and, what is more, it is upheld by the virtue of private persons.

"I know not how it comes to pass, but many whose hearts are warm, and fortunes large, do not yet seem to be acquainted, that this affair is conducted by a Society, who are quite in earnest with regard

to the public welfare; that it is attended by a regular committee that not a penny of the subscriptions is diverted from the object of them; that no single person has any direction independent of the committee; and that it is of more universal utility, with regard to the present occasion of war, than all the other noble private cha rities with which this nation abounds. If all this were known, and we may pronounce it to be absolutely true, I think we should be higher in cash: not that we have checked our operations in any instance: we consider ourselves as the children of Providence, and have received many providential supplies. Necessity is the mother of invention; and we must hope that the rich will give us help to carry it through with spirit till the end of the war.

I have not time at present to inform you of all that we are about; but I am in hopes we shall hit upon the means of providing for our boys when the war is ended, of which the Society, I make no doubt, will be very glad, but they must be properly assisted. As to the great national object, in respect to our Seamen in general, ta which you pay so much attention, I will let you know my thoughts in good time. Farewell.*

Such were the beneficial effects of the institution, that the society had received from the year 1756 to the year 1762, 22,5531. 11s, 2d.

During the war which then subsisted, the society had clothed and equipped for the navy five thousand fout hundred and fifty-two persons, chiefly landsmen, and four thousand seven hundred and forty-five boys, of whom the majority were in abject poverty, and unhappy candidates for perdition; while others suffering under the additional calamity of disease, were humanely relieved out of the funds of this most excellent society. The legacy above mentioned of 20,000l. and eventually of 2000l. additional, was to be placed at interest; the amount of which is applied, during war, to the equipment of boys for the navy; and, in peace, for apprenticing boys and girls; the society pre. ferring orphans of seamen and soldiers.

Thus have a body of philanthropists raised and substantiated a fabric dedicated to Humanity, to Patriotism, and

• Reasons for an augmentation of at least twelve thousand maripers, &c. 1759.

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