stamping of receipts, &c. are carried on, will much interest the curious. The produce of the sale of Ely House was applied towards the expenses of the erection of this pile.

The present arrangement of the offices in Somerset House, is as follows: on the north side, immediately adjoining to the Royal Academy, is the Legacy Duty Office; and in the correspondent building, next the Royal Society, are two or three Exchequer Of fices; beyond the latter, is the Lottery Office; and still further, going under the arch, the Privy Seal and Signet Offices here also, on the east terrace, is the entrance to the Tax Office. On the west side, are the Victualling, Navy Pay, and Transport branch of the Navy Office. On the south side are the Navy and Stamp Offices ;-and on the east side the Audit and Duchy of Cornwall Offices.-The west terrace, called Somerset Place, contains the official houses of the Treasurer of the Navy, the Comptroller of the Navy, the three Commissioners and Secretary of the Navy Board, and the Chairman, two Commissioners, and Secretary of the Victualling Department.

In 1711, Queen Anne issued orders to prepare Somerset Chapel for the celebration of Divine worship, according to the Established ritual; and it was opened on the 15th of April, in that year, with an appropriate Sermon, by Dr. Robinson, Bishop of Bristol. Here, in the reign of George the First, the son of the Chief of the Yamansees, an Indian tribe residing near the Carolinas, in North America, was baptized by the name of George, his sponsors being Lady Conyers, Lord Carteret, and Abel Kettilby, Esq.

This ancient chapel of Somerset House was finally closed in 1777. Previously to this, in June, 1764, the nomination of the Chaplain was surrendered by Dr. Terrick, Bishop of London and Dean of the King's Chapels, to the then Lord Chamberlain, Earl Gower, who immediately granted a warrant for the officiating preacher, the Rev. Dr. Lewis Bruce, being sworn in Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty for Somerset House, with an annual salary of 100l. Mr. Bruce had been appointed preacher there in 1741, but no salary was allowed whilst the appointment continued vested in the Dean. Several of the children of Lord Henry Beauclerk, who had apartments in old Somerset House, were baptized in the chapel, between the years 1743 and 1749. The burials, of which there were but fourteen between 1720 and 1777, were all by warrant from the Lord Chamberlain's Office. Many persons of rank are recorded among the marriages here,* of which the most known as public characters, are Moses Da Costa married to Rachael Mendes, otherwise Da Costa, in January, Soame Jenyns to Eliz. Gray, in February, 1754; and 1747; Robert Travis, to Miss Catharine Gunning of Somerset House, in May, 1769.

PARDON CHURCH HAUGH AND CHAPEL, ST. PAUL'S.

THE DANCE OF DEATH.

On the north side of St. Paul's Cathedral,

"east

ward from the Bishop's palace," was a quadrangular plot of ground, environed by "a great Cloyster,"

* Vide Malcolm's "Londinium Redivivum," vol. iv. pp. 294-296.

66

called Pardon Church Yard, or Haugh, within the area of which was a faire Chappell," founded in the reign of King Stephen, by Gilbert Becket, Portgrave or Port-reve of London, (father of the sainted Archbishop Becket,) for his own burial place. The Chapel was rebuilt and dedicated anew to St. Anne, and Thomas of Canterbury, by Dr. Thomas More, or Moore, who was Dean of St. Paul's from 1406 to 1421, in which latter year he died, and was buried in its Cloisters, of which Stow says, "he was either the first builder, or a most especial benefactor thereunto." He also commenced a chantry here for three priests, for the perpetual celebration of his annual obit, &c. which was perfected by his executors. A fourth priest was added in the eighth year of Henry VI. anno 1429, for like purposes, by the last will of Walter Cakton, citizen of London; and some additional lands were bequeathed to the same chantry in 1442, by Helen Stile, widow, for the maintenance of an obit for herself and her late husband. This chapel, with three sides of the Cloister surrounding it, was demolished to supply materials for the erection of Somerset House, as stated in the preceding account of that edifice.†

In the Cloister " were buried many persons, some of worship and others of honour; the monuments of whom in number and curious workmanship, passed all other that were in that church." Upon the walls too"was artificially and richly painted, the

"Survey of London," p. 615: edit. 1618.
Vide pp. 137, 138.

Stow's "Survey," p. 616.

Dance of Machabray, or Dance of Death, commonly called the Dance of Pauls; the like whereof was painted about S. Innocents Cloyster at Paris; the metres or poesie of this Dance were translated out of French into English by John Lidgate, Monke of Bury the Picture of Death leading all Estates [was executed] at the dispence of Jenkyn Carpenter, in the reign of Henry the Sixth."*

tr

This Dance was engraved by Hollar, and his print is attached to some copies of Dugdale's History of St. Pauls," in the Appendix to which Lydgate's verses are inserted, but those verses instead of being a mere translation from the French, were both altered and amplified by the English poet. Warton thinks that Hollar's engraving was copied from a wood-cut prefixed to the same verses in Totțell's edition of Lydgate, published in 1554.†

The original colloquial verses of the Dance of Death are reputed to have been written by a physician, named Machaber, a German, in his own language; and he probably derived his ideas of the subject from the painted representations of the Dance, which began to be prevalent in churches and religious edifices about the latter part of the fourteenth century, if not earlier.

Previously, however, to the Dance of Death thus becoming a subject of pictorial art, we learn from

"Survey of London," p. 616.

+ Vide "Notes" on Spenser's "Fairy Queen," vol. ii. p.

Warton, that it used to be represented in a kind of Spiritual Masquerade, by Ecclesiastics habited in person and character; and as thus acted, it is alluded to in the Visions of Pierce Plowman, written perhaps as early as the year 1850.* It was afterwards painted on the walls of various buildings in different parts of the continent, as at Minden, in Westphalia, before 1383; in the portico of St. Mary's Church, Lubeck, about 1463; and at Dresden, Leipsic, Annaberg, and other places. The most celebrated of these paintings of the Death-Dance, which was at Basil, in Switzerland, was for a long period attributed to Hans Holbein, and Pennant, by terming it the "famous painting" of that artist, has highly contributed to extend the error; yet Walpole, or rather Vertue, whose valuable collections form the basis of the "Anecdotes of Painting," has rendered it evident, on the ground of chronology, that it could not have been executed by Holbein, it having been painted some years before his birth. So far was the al fresco representation at Basil, from possessing the merit commonly assigned to it, that the late Dr. Moore, speaking of its faded colours and dismal gallery, describes the " plan of the piece as so wretched, that the finest execution could hardly prevent its giving

Vide "History of English Poetry," vol. ii. p. 54, notes. Warton farther states, that this Procession is mentioned, as to the time of the year and the particular day of the solemnity, in the Quotidien Office of the Church,' printed at Paris, in 1579, 8vo.