Then, if a Priest wished to expend a certain sum on church plate, he would go to Rundell and Bridges; if on an altar-cloth, to some ' eminent upholsterer's' at the West End; if on a font, to Messrs. Austin and Seeley; and go home fully persuaded that his expensive purchase was the ne plus ultra of good taste.

Now it is no longer so. It is allowed on all hands, that there is a fixed standard by which church ornaments are to be tried, namely, tradition. And the results of that tradition are given, so far as respects the most important features of church arrangement and decoration, in the work before us. It is not too much to say, that no such important contribution has been made to ecclesiology since the days of Bishops Alcock and West. Most of the designs are copies; some are slightly altered from the original, and a few themselves original designs. To praise the beauty of Mr. Butterfield's designs, their simplicity, their exquisite keeping, their tact,' would be useless to those that know the book, and might seem hyperbolical to others. But what strikes us as their principal characteristic is their strong common sense: there is a plain downright English character in them which must eventually take; and which has again and again, we speak from experience-wrung forth from plain country masons and carpenters, the blunt expression, "Well, sir, I must say that's an uncommon pretty piece of work."

Our readers are without doubt aware that the principal design of the Instrumenta is to enable a Priest in the heart of the country to employ a common workman, with the assurance that, if he possesses common skill, the article he produces shall be correct. There are some designs indeed, for metal work more especially, which could not so be treated; but these may be procured from the Society's tradesmen in London.

We now propose to take a cursory view of the plates, seventy-two in number, grouping them together according to their natural connection. They are arranged in no order. This the plan of the work rendered unavoidable; but we wish there had been a good index.

Plates 1, 3, 5, 7, 15, 16, 28, 33, are all designs for monuments. 1 is a plain oak cross with coping: its cost about £2: its effect excellent. 5 and 28 each contain four headcrosses of stone. Mr. Paget, Mr. Markland, and Mr. Armstrong have given similar designs with the best of motives, but not with equal success. The only fault we have to find in the Camden ones is that the inscriptions commence with the name of the person commemorated; a beginning utterly unknown to mediæval epitaph writers. We may mention here, as it is not referred to in the Instrumenta, that the floriation and inscription should be at the east side of the stone. 7, 16, 33 are coped stones, or coffin lids, or floor crosses for the interior of a church. Of these, the two at 33 are our favourites : the one from Wells Cathedral can hardly be excelled. 15 is a kind of monument we do not want to see revived; but it may take,

and has authority: it is a high tomb in the open air. We wish there were some designs for interior high tombs, and canopied mural sepulchres; but those, we hope, are only deferred till Series II. Connected with these is 27, a churchyard cross. The example is from Somersby, in Lincolnshire. We are glad to see that a feeling in favour of the restoration of these seems to have arisen, and we have never yet heard of any opposition being provoked by it, however much it might antecedently have been expected.

Another very desirable accompaniment to a churchyard is by a lychgate, where the corpse may be set down for a few moments, which will give the Priest time to advance with the greater solemnity from the church. One of two evils is wont to arise from the absence of this gate. In some cases the custom of meeting the corpse on the entrance to the churchyard has been almost given up, the Priest contenting himself with preceding it as it advances up the church. In others, he is left waiting about in the churchyard to his great loss of time, funerals being so notoriously unpunctual. If the weather is wet, the inconvenience is of course infinitely increased. A wooden lychgate is given at plates 34, 35,—and a very elegant one it is: a stone one (which is less desirable, but may be necessary,) at plates 65, 66.

This leads us to speak of the bier and pall which ought to belong to every parish. The custom of conveying the dead on the shoulders of the bearers is unspeakably disgusting and harmful. The whole paraphernalia of trestles is unsafe and irreverent. No long time ago, and the case may be still the same,—at the parishchurch of Brighton, it was the custom to place the coffin on the font, while the funeral service was being read. A bier obviates all these difficulties. It should be furnished with a hearse,-that is an open framework, under which the coffin is placed, for the purpose of hanging the pall thereon. Such a bier is given in the Instrumenta at plate 32. A pall, to be made of silk, velvet, or cloth, blue or purple, with a white or red "S. George's Cross" of the same material worked on it, is given at plate 63.

Proceeding to the interior of the church, the altar first claims our attention. Here we find the only two systems of altar vesting which have been brought forward,—Mr. Pugin's and the Cambridge Camden Society's, - very different. The Cambridge Camden Society have entirely gone by precedent: such precedent being found in illuminations and the like undoubted sources of authority. Mr. Pugin's is in some degree original.

The Cambridge Camden Society's system may briefly be described thus; and it is the system of Poore and Waynflete, of Wykeham and Alcock.

The frontal, or vestment for the front and sides of the altar may be made in two ways : its material will be cloth, silk, or velvet. It may be stretched over three wooden frames, hung respectively

on the three sides of the altar, on nails, fixed into the altar or its frame, if there be a frame. Or it may be made out of one piece, fastened by hooks and eyes to the inner part of the superfrontal, and fringed like it.

The superfrontal is of the same material as the frontal: it covers the top of the altar, and hangs down from eight to ten inches, including the fringe, on the three disengaged sides of the altar. The fringe is untwisted silk, of two or more colours, say red and green, or red, yellow, and green,—or red, white, yellow, and green, four inches or so long, and each compartment of colour some six inches broad.

The colour of the superfrontal and frontal should not be the same. If the latter be green, (as it ought to be where only one is used,) the former might be crimson.

Over the superfrontal is placed the super-altar: a long, narrow wooden box, in length the same as the altar's width, four or five inches high, and broad enough to hold the candlesticks and altar cross. It need not be vested; and, if vested, may be the colour of the frontal or superfrontal at pleasure.

The altar stands on a foot-pace; i.e., a wooden step, projecting a few inches at the sides, and some two feet west of the altar. Its height, about six inches.

Mr. Pugin's system differs from the above, principally in having no super-altar, nor superfrontal, in our sense of the word, depending over the frontal,-and no fringe to the frontal; in leaving the edge of the mensa of the altar exposed, and also the basement.

The basement, according to the Cambridge Camden Society's system, may be exposed, though in ancient illuminations it generally is not. And perhaps where it is, it is designed to have a moveable foot-pace of the same height as the basement placed before it.

Chalices, and patens, and candlesticks form some of the most valuable plates in this series. To go for them to a common goldsmith is now unpardonable: they cannot, for want of instruments, make them correctly; and their bad imitations are far dearer than the correct originals.

It may be useful to give the lowest estimate of the expense of an altar, supposing the parish Priest to find in his church nothing worthy of the Eucharistic Office.

Stone work of the altar itself,— say

(An oaken frame might be 16s.)

Mensa, or stone slab at the top, (under favourable

circumstances,)

Material and erection of a foot-pace,—say

Super-altar of oak.

Superfrontal and vest of super-altar cloth, say

two yards at 10s. a yard, such cloth usually
running in breadths of two yards

£ s. d. 200

. 100

Frontals, say three yards, at 10s. a yard
Fringes, material and making,-say seven yards

at 10s.

Hanging, for the wall behind the altar, materials

and making,-say two yards, at 10s. Two brazen candlesticks, small size

(These only do for a small chancel, -the lion
pattern costs £3 10s.)

Two tapers

(A floriated brazen cross, £7, but say—)

A floriated and illuminated wooden cross

A chalice, silver gilt

A paten, ditto.

An alms dish, brass

Two glass cruets, say

Chalice veils, napkins, pall, &c., say

Total

3 10

8 0

2 10 0

£31 3 0

This seems, perhaps, a large sum for a poor parish Priest, but it may be done by instalments.

A triptych, as the most appropriate reredos, is given at pl. 67. The subject-the Entombment-is from Taddeo Gaddi. We have also stone sedilia at pl. 25; and wooden ones, very suitable where the walls are too modernly thin to admit of the other sort: an altar-desk, for the support of the priest's book during celebration, is given in the last plate.

Of letterns there are three, plates 2, 21, 24; all from old examples; of which we like the last, from All Saints, Hawstead, Suffolk, the best. The wooden eagle at 26, from All Saints, Leighton Buzzard, we like little in the original, and less in the copy. We wish there had been (instead of a wooden eagle, which never answers well) a plate of Mr. Butterfield's beautiful brazen one at Lincoln College, Oxford.

Stalls are so very important a feature of church arrangement, that we wonder more plates have not been devoted to them. There is but one example given (pl. 43), and that is from S. Mary's Hospital, Chichester: though a good specimen, it is rather peculiar; which in such a work is not desirable. Of fixed seats there are, perhaps with great propriety, no examples: of moveable benches there is a plate (47) both with poppy-heads and without: also there is one of church chairs (64). The Litany desks, given at 17, we do not think at all successful; they are clumsy, and quite unlike anything shown by our best authorities for such things-Elizabethan mural monuments, where the old spirit seems to have been quite kept up. We are told in the letter-press, that "they ought to be covered with a hanging or embroidered carpet, which may

either quite envelope them, or merely cover the bookstand, and depend in front.". We more than doubt whether the last clause is correct, at least in England. We believe that they ought to be vested, on all sides, half way down, with cloth or velvet fringed with silk.

There is a great deal of excellent iron work, (plates 8, 21, 22, 29) including hinges, door plates, key holes, and the like: all most excellent in their kind.

But perhaps the most successful revival of the Cambridge Camden Society, next to that of altar plate, is the flowered quarries, manufactured by Messrs. Powel of Whitefriars. Examples are given at 41 and 42; but it is impossible, by mere outline figures, to give an idea of the effect of windows so fitted. They cost only five shillings a square foot, including the lead, which is supplied of double thickness. The Cambridge Camden Society have added many more kinds to their quarries since that plate was published; of which the two most beautiful are perhaps a floriated one from S. -, Kemsing, Kent, and a columbine, the mediæval emblem of the HOLY GHOST.

Of font covers also we have four plates; both of the pyramidal kind, of which an excellent plain example is given from S. Margaret, Thrandeston, Suffolk, at 36, and a more elaborate one at 13: and also, which is likely to be more generally useful, of the flat sort, with the system of bar and padlock well explained.

We must draw to a conclusion, and therefore will only refer to the beauty of the chandelier or corona, (60), and of the standard lights (71), and also particularly to recommend to our readers, in preference to every other method, that of warming a church by the iron brazier (30). Its cost is £5, or if larger size, £6; and every one who has tried it will bear witness to its complete success. paper of directions for making coke is supplied with it.

A

The Cambridge Camden Society and Mr. Butterfield, in their design for an organ case, come in very curious contrast with Mr. Pugin. Our readers will remember that a short time ago we reviewed a little work on organs, which Mr. Pugin had furnished with original designs, of the most gorgeous character,—every inch filled with sculpture. We do not object to that system; but we own that the unpretending square pipes of the Cambridge Camden Society organ (69)-quite plain, and quite exposed, strike us as far more original, and far more mediæval.

We need say nothing in praise of the spirit of this book. It is quite an amplification of the beautiful words of Cardinal Bona: "Tu dixisti, Fiat lux: et facta est lux: cujus fulgore illustratus, has rerum liturgicarum illustrationes adgressus sum, priscos ecclesiæ ritus perlustrans, quantum Tu posse dedisti, de Cujus plenitudine omnes acceperunt. Intravi ubi Tu aperuisti, asserendo et defendendo quæ certa sunt: incerta vero et occulta solicite inquirendo,