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"restoring" and church decorating then than now.

The later

attempts may have perhaps profited by the follies of their predecessors. In nothing do men so mislead themselves and are misled (especially if they possess no thorough knowledge of the subject) as in architectural questions, points of taste, and antiquarian investigations. To form a judgment upon the professional ability of architects to invent and carry out any great scheme, it is only necessary to ask each what he thinks of the rest, when the differences between schools and parties, and the rivalries between individuals can lead to but one logical conclusion, that all may be perfectly incompetent and dangerous advisers, and that some certainly are so.

If it was desirable at all to go back to the old design of the builders of the Temple Church, it was impossible in most points to err. The pillars and walls must be cleaned, and the wood work renewed. All this was done. What more was added, was simply out of the compound taste of the nineteenth century; the benches and the seats and fittings are no restoration at all. As to the painting of the ceiling, "authorities" must be expected to contradict each other. Whether right or wrong originally, it is certain that now the paint is dingy and dirty, and in some places gone altogether. It must sooner or later be determined whether the design shall be repainted or painted out. And a future committee of Benchers, no doubt, will decide this in a manner perfectly satisfactory to themselves.

The stained windows at the east end of the church are by Mr. Willement. In proportion to any admiration which they have excited among "the general," is the injury they have done to the art. And of the multitudes who flocked to see the church, not a few were of course led to suppose that they must be all that windows ought to be, or they would not have been placed there. First, they are ugly; secondly, they are false in principle; and thirdly, they make the east end of the building gloomy and dark. The large centre window seems to be a reduced copy from one of the well-known windows of a cathedral in France. The figures in the medallions, distorted and gro

tesque, in miserable imitation of old work, are of such a reduced size, that they are not only out of all proportion to the ornament which surrounds them, but the groups themselves are unintelligible. In order to give the windows depth of tone, and save them from a lean and thin effect, it was found necessary after they had been set up, to load them with coats of oil paint on the outside. The oil, as might have been expected, has been recently acted on by the atmosphere, and, cracking off, left the window spotty. This mischief, we presume, has now been met by a repainting, which operation must be repeated whenever the occasion arises. The window at the south-east corner was added a few since. It was erected to the memory of a very years estimable man and excellent lawyer, Frederic Robinson, by some of his many friends and admirers. We wish it had been a worthier specimen of art which had been selected for such a purpose. It is, however, an opaque and spurious specimen of window "painting." Instead of serving the object of a window, it accomplishes the undesirable purpose of a shutter, and renders the pulpit a gloomy spot, where an extempore preacher might perhaps spout in his obscurity; but where one who wants light. by which to read his sermon, must grope miserably after his text. If all the windows in the church were filled in this way, no member of the Inn who resorted thither, could reach his seat or read his book without a lamp of his own.

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Far superior in design and colour are the windows in the Round Church, lately presented to the Inn by a member of the Inner Temple, Mr. Winston,1 and executed by Ward, of Frith Street, Soho. Some of the colours-the blue and the ruby especially—rival the best specimens of the best periods of glass painting, and the windows are altogether a great advance on modern stained glass-work. These, however, are recent additions to the church, and form no part of the restoration.

With respect to the organ gallery, the architects had only a

1 It is understood that the success of Mr. Winston in producing his colours, arises from his close examination and long study of old glass, which he has submitted to chemical analysis.

choice of difficulties; but the effect of its present position is not pleasing, there being a dark break in the middle of the north side, where a window was, but is not. To match with this dark shadow thrown into the middle of the building on one side, a very silly, dark window has been placed opposite it to shade the corresponding side; it represents, inter alia, a figure of (we believe) a deformed bencher using a bright bathing towel, and is in a fine London shop transparency style, which is its main feature, though to some it presents the idea very vividly of a second-hand brown holland blind, on which the art of Potichomanie has been unsuccessfully attempted. But the organ is, doubtless, in a better place than that which an aesthetic bencher once proposed for it, viz. :-in a gallery over the east window !!

The raised benches for the Barristers, running along the north and south sides, are simply abominable; and the quasi mediæval carving of ugly and abortional heads, is a sad example of what restorationists will attempt when not checked by common sense and good taste.

The new altar has had to endure much hostile criticism; but what was to be done? As was properly said at the time, not one of the committee could suggest a better. Again, in the days of old, when books were rare, architects used to paint up against the wall passages of the Prayer-book or of the Bible in the characters then understood by ordinary scholars. This was therefore a capital precedent for the restorers to inscribe on the Temple Church, in letters now perfectly unintelligible, portions of the sacred books, of which about a thousand copies lie before the members of the congregation.

There are yet two points which we will refer to before we leave the topic of this skilful restoration; the first is, that all the new external stone-work of the north side of the church is crumbling away, and a little bill for new facing a considerable portion of the walls will have to be paid one of these days. The second point is, that a choir room being wanted, it was designed and constructed on the north side (that is, the one looking on to the old churchyard), in a manner which every member of

the Inn who, admiring architecture, respects restoration, and also cares to see how his money is spent, should particularly examine. The room in question is of the nature of a London "area" floor. It is leaded over, and looks very much indeed like "back premises." The whole contrivance of rooms and passages, which are close, inconvenient, unhealthy, unsuitable, and ridiculous, merits specific notice.

The matter of expense we may now refer to, but delicately, as it is one of bygone days, and one by which much experience has been gained; moreover, the financial embarrassment produced by the expenditure is overcome. The exact sum, then, which the Inner Temple paid for the repairs in the years 1826 to 1828, is £11,385 5 4. The Middle Temple paid about the same. Thus, the whole work in these years (for which indeed the late Restoration Committee are not responsible), cost the two Inns of Court nearly £23,000!!

From 1840 to 1843 (the great restoration epoch), the Inner Temple expended on the church £26,784 : 13: 5. The Middle Temple rather more. Thus the two hon. Societies laid out during the latter period at least £53,000! The whole of the money of the Societies, which the Benchers, under the advice probably of their architects, thus squandered, amounts to eighty thousand pounds ! ! a sum sufficient to have built eight handsome churches, each containing a thousand sittings, or to have entirely reconstructed the Temple Church itself, as it now stands, many times over. We would mention here that the first estimate for the whole work which was thus swelled, was between £4000 and £5000!!

And now the church, restored at the rate of £100 per sitting, was to be reopened. We were to have a partial choral service; women singers were to be abolished according to Catholic sentiment; three men in surplices, and four small boys, were crammed in the little stone gallery in front of the organ-an arrangement eminently ridiculous, both architecturally and musically, which accordingly was amended, and awkward choir benches were invented and placed in the body of the church. But the introduction of the choral service gave rise to an exhibition of a fierce

Protestant feeling among the masters of the bench; and it was not without a struggle, and the encountering of much suspicion and some obloquy, that this choral service was planted in the Temple. Even benchers may have their prejudices on these matters; and a few raised their testimony, and bore witness against the excesses of prelatists and hypocrites. These urged that they could say their prayers better than sing them; to which their antagonists rejoined, that their prayers were at least heard more certainly if sung. A well-known baronet, also a master of the bench, was loud in his denunciations of Popish practices. He himself, he affirmed (and he was readily believed), had never sung any prayers all his long life. As is usual in such controversies as these, the warmth waxed greater and greater. Some on each side were constrained to believe, while others were free to observe, that if they sang or said their prayers respectively, they might, should, or would be damned. As our readers for the most part know, the dispute was compromised, and ended in the temporal discomfiture (and, consequently, eternal sacrifice) of the low church faction. Consequently, the speaking or parish clerk and charity schoolboy service, was to be almost abolished. The difficulty had been increased by the respected and worthy master (Benson) meeting with the grievous infliction of total deafness. He was utterly unable to hear even the loudest tones of the organ; and the choral services met with no approbation from him. A happy compromise was eventually resolved upon, by which the consciences of one side, and the wishes of the other, were regarded. The psalms were to be chanted, the anthems might be sung, the "amens" given in full harmony. But there was to be no Popish intoning of the prayers; so now we enjoy the happy compromise of the priest reading on in as many notes as he likes, while the choir intones with him or after him as in the proper cathedral service, on G, or as near to this note as they can get, -thus producing a charming and musical effect. If the Reader strive, as some do, to read nearly on the same key as the choristers, just escaping from the sin of intoning on a fixed note, he fails necessarily and egregiously, making a perpetual discord. If

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