Master Masons : Edward Strong, &C.

minster Abbey ; and Sir Charles Barry a bastard brass in its nave . Painters and scul p tors have fared better , though Sir Peter Lely ' s monumental bust , by Grinling Gibbons , perished in the fire that destroyed Covent Garden Church ; Cooper , that prince of miniature-painters , has a monument

in old St . Pancras ; Sir Godfrey Kneller has a monument and bust in Westminster Abbey ; Eeynolds has a statue ( by Elaxman ) in St . Paul ' s ; and Flaxman a statue ( by Watson ) in London University . Another person of the name of Strong ( Thomas

Strong ) was employed in rebuilding St . Paul ' s , under Wren . His prices deserve quotation , and may challenge comparison with the prices of today : — " For plain Portland sfcone-work , of tho pilasters and rnstics , window-jambs , architraves , and bosks , sixteenpenoe halfpenny per foot . " For carving faces of impost capitals , £ 6 each ; panels with flowers and enrichments , £ 3 5 s . each ; escalops in

the heads of the outside niches , £ 3 10 s . " Two large compartments and festoons , each 12 ft . iu length , £ 45 ; seventy-five great flowers , ui the soffits of the five windows at the west end , 15 s . each ; and sixty smaller , 5 s . each . " Pendant strings , 3 ft . 9 in . in length , and 1 ft . in breadth , £ 5 each .

" Cherubim , 10 s . ; flowers iu the architrave , 9 s . each . " Four festoons , over the two straight windoAVs at the east end , £ ' 20 each . " Six festoons , o \ -er the three circular windows at the east end , £ 20 each . "Five cherubim , on tho key-stones of the five east -windows , at £ 13 each key-stone .

" Three shields , each 3 ffc . high and 4 ffc . wide , £ 7 each . " Is a Portland stone cherubim cheap at twenty shillings ? I would ask a classic-chnrch-architect , if such a rarity can be found in Gothic England at this day . The dislike which Radcliffe Library Gibbs shoAved on all occasions to monuments in churches

is curiously exhibited in his finel y proportioned ¦ church of St . Martin ' s-in-the-Fields . The curious monuments in the patched-and-added-tb little -church he was required to replace , he either destroyed or banished to a Siberian cellar or Cimmerian gloom underneath his own noble new

building . The monuments to the celebrated sculptors , who called Inigo friend , and rendered Idigo good masonic service—Nicholas Stone and his son—he destroyed or sold with a savage fidelit y to the rules ha laid doAA'n . As a proof of his ri g id adherents to his rulesin the vaults of the present

, building may still be found ( I cannot say seen ) the monument ( the bust finely coloured to the life ) of Sir Theodore Mayerne , the famous physician , with whom Eubens and V ' andyck loved to talk touching the composition and duration of the p igments they should employ to resist the hand of Time . And

here , by Avay of a Montaigne ramble , alloAV me to suggest that the authorities of St . Martin ' s mi g ht be asked to make a present of Sir Theodore to the nei ghbouring College of Physicians . They recently suffered all that remains of flesh and bone of the great John Hunter to be removed to

Master Masons : Edward Strong, &C.

St . Paul's ; and Her Majesty , to gratify the Scottish nation , has recently transferred the pictures of James III . and his queen from Hampton Court to Holyrood . There is a royal precedent for it , and St . Martin ' s is a royal and loyal parish . NBAV Barnsin Hertfordshirethe house of Sir

, , Christopher ' s master mason at St . Paul ' s from , the beginning even unto the end thereof , is a stragg ling-like structure , patched , vamped , and compoed since Strong lived in it , and almost defying descri p tion . It is most pleasantly situate on the banks of the Ver , has noble trees worth y of

Longleat or Sion , and of rare character , planted by the master-mason himself , when he dropped the mason ' s ti'OAvel for the gardener ' s spade . The " trim gardens themselves" would receive critical

commendation from a Loudon , a Lindley , or a Paxton . When I tell you ( perhaps onl y remind you ) , that NOAV Barns is the property and residence of Mrs . Worley , a Avealthy and umvorldly lady , and that Christ Church , St . Alban ' s , was built aud endoAA ed by her benevolence and

munificence , the subscri p tions I seek in aid of the Old Mortality task I undertake Avill not be Avithout " a something , " and something more from Mrs . Worley . With the noble abbey we possess to inflame and insjDire us ; with the remembrances awakened by

the ruins of SopAvell Nunnery—they were g iven to a master mason ;—I do not doubt of success . Eemember , the greatest individual subscriber to Sir Christopher ' s St . Paul ' s was a Hertfordshire lady . —PETER CUNNINGHAM , * in the Builder .

The Mountain Homes Of North Wales.

THE MOUNTAIN HOMES OF NORTH WALES .

"As the home , so the people . " During a trip from the noisy Avorld for a few days , " O ' er hills , through valleys , and by rivers' brink , " I put on your sanitary spectacles , and beg to send a feAV notes of that AAdrich came under observation ,

thinking that you will be interested and your readers amused . The arrival in the little toAvn of Llangollen , a place of resort b y tourists , was most agreeable after the inconvenience experienced b y the raiUvay