with glass, and that once every year, during the first sixty years after his death, certain members of the congregation were obliged to go down into the vault and look into the coffin: the face is not covered with glass, and some appointed persons go occasionally into the vault to see that the body is safe; it is not yet dust, but presents a dry and dark appearance to those who, either from duty or curiosity, disturb the quiet of the grave.

There are many tombs of different periods, and almost all handsome, and of great expense, with curious tablets against the walls, and a row of the peculiarly shaped Misereres, varnished into light oak, leaning against a white-washed wall—a great deal of space wasted, as if the congregation was not sufficient to fill the church, robbed, as it is, of its fair proportions-the highest of all high pews clustered together, and then breaking off abruptly, and leaving spaces between them and the monks' seats; bits of painted armorial bearings stuck in an ocean of white glass, giving the windows a patchy appearance; and all this beneath a low barnlike roof springing from arches.

The traveller might expect to find such a quaint building in the far-away country parts of England, in the centre of some old village,—but certainly not so close to City traffic, that one window of Crosby Hall looks over the quiet church-yard. But the great attraction to us was the tomb of Sir Thomas Gresham; Mr. Fairholt has rendered it without its protecting rails *, which rails, the pew-opener assured us, were not necessary; 'for what harm could happen that tomb more than others?' The first sketch the artist made of the tomb embraced the mural monument of William Bond, a great friend of Gresham's, who occupied Crosby Place until the time of his death, which occurred in 1576. He was, according to his epitaph, 'flos Mercatorum,' a merchant-adventurer, most famous in his age, for his great adventures both by sea and land; † and almost all the monuments, mural

*The costly yet unambitious altar-tomb of Sir Thomas Gresham,' as Burgon aptly terms it, is in the north-eastern corner of the church. It stands on two steps of stone, and is richly sculptured in alabaster. The original railing was light and tasteful; it had decayed, and a modern one has been substituted, which is heavy and bad, and completely hides all that is worth seeing. The tombs around are nearly all of Gresham's friends, 'from whom in death he was not divided;' he sleeps amid those he loved.

Burgon mentions some curious entries in the churchwardens' accounts preserved at St. Helen's, commencing as early as 1565, but the notices touching Sir Thomas Gresham are few.

or otherwise, record some honoured name of those whom Gresham numbered his friends.

among

He himself was suddenly cut off by a fit of apoplexy, when he numbered only sixty years, according to Holinshed, on Saturday the 21st of November, 1579, betweene six and seuen of the clocke in the evening; comming from the Exchange to his house (which he had sumptuously builded) in

Bishopsgate Street, he suddenlie fell down in his kitchen, and being taken up, was found speechless and presently dead.'*

The remains of this great patriarch of commerce and commercial finance' were placed within the costly yet unambitious altar-shaped tomb,

The names of Bond, Pickering, Pollard, Cæsar, Read, and Spencer, perpetually occur throughout its pages; the same register also mentions Thomas Morley, musition-and records the existence of the family of Paul Vandervelde, Dutch Picture-maker.'

*His son Richard died in 1564. Anne Gresham, his natural daughter, was said to have been born at Bruges. It is no small credit to Lady Gresham that she received and treated her as her own child, while her father made her all the reparation in his power, by bestowing on her the advantages of a careful education and an ample dower. She married into a family of high distinction, for she called the great Lord Bacon brother. She was probably dead before the date of her father's will, since it is silent respecting her.-Burgon.

which he himself had prepared for them in the eastern corner of St. Helen's Church on the 15th of December, 1579. Until the year 1736 it bore no inscription; and Pennant observes, that so great a name needed not the proclamation of an epitaph.' Nevertheless, we think those did wisely who, copying the following words from the parish register, caused them to be engraved on black marble, and inserted on the top of the tomb.

Sr THOMAS GRESHAM, Knight,
Buryd Decembr the 15th 1579.

The rest of the monument which covers the ashes of a man whose reputation is not confined to England, is of richly wrought alabaster, sculptured on every side with the armorial bearings of Gresham, the escutcheons on the north-eastern and south-eastern sides impaling Fernely. Its very incongruity and quaintness renders this venerable church a fitting restingplace for the right noble citizen. And it would be well if our modern 'millionaires' reviewing their own deeds beside the tomb of this Merchant Prince,'-surrounded as it is by quaint records of his former friends and neighbours; men not only remarkable in their time, but who have left more enduring traces of themselves than tombs of brass and stone-would remember that,

'when our souls shall leave this dwelling,
The glory of one fair and virtuous action
Is above all the 'scutcheons on our tomb,
Or silken banners over us!"

The progress of the millionaires' of these later days has been rendered remarkable by the multitudes whom vain speculations have urged on to ruin. The good that has been done has sprung literally from the 'people ; 'here, from an humble individual founding a Charity by the power and goodness of his own mind-there, by an Institute commenced and supported by simple-minded men zealous for improvement. Again, as in the case of the 'Savings Banks,' by a woman , eager to accumulate and protect property for those whose wealth, if it grows, must grow from small savings:

*

-as in

the Temperance Reformation,' from the labours of a humble priest; or,

as in the Shelter for Foundlings,' by the efforts of a rough sea-captain; or,

*Priscilla Wakefield.

as in the Benevolent Fund,' by the exertions of a poor miniature-painter. The list might be so prolonged as to include almost all the great and true Charities of modern days; while the best of our flourishing Institutions may for the most part be traced to sources equally obscure, and, to all human seeming, powerless. It is too generally the curse of our age to plant money that we may grow money; not with a hallowed memory of the Divine injunction

'To do good and to distribute, forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased!' but for that power which rarely or never worketh contentment; and is not unfrequently associated with a terrible shadow that parts not—even at the brink of the grave.

If biography be History teaching by Example,' that of the great and good Sir Thomas Gresham may not be lost in this Utilitarian Age; how many even now, two centuries and a half after his death, are nourished by the corn he garnered !

THE TOMB OF THOMAS GRAY.

HE view from the Royal Terrace at Windsor is one of such surpassing beauty, that the longer we gaze the more we appreciate its variety, its luxurious richness, and its vast extent. It is in truth a glorious landscape, unrivalled in Europe, Well may the Sovereign who, day by day, looks The smiling villages, the spired knight and squire,' the stately

over such a scene, be proud thereof! churches, the embowered dwellings of mansions, the wide spreading lawns, the variegated parks, the noble forest sheltering beneath its foliage the tributary strangers of distant lands-the stately avenue, the noble river upon whose banks the

'antique towers,

That crown the watery glade,'

nurture, within time-honoured walls, the future leaders of the senate and the field-under the very shadows of the Royal pile they thus learn to reverence with all the deep devotion of English hearts, and to defend as much by wisdom as by the dauntless bravery that carries Englishmen triumphant through the world :

'From the stately brow

Of Windsor's heights, th' expanse below

Of grove, of lawn, of mead, survey!'

No foreigner should be permitted to leave England without spending a long day at Windsor, and it should not be the first, but the last of his