great and laudable improvements made in the Church of Howden, by yourself, your church wardens, and the parishioners. They have been so great as to elicit general applause-so liberal as to command admiration-and so tastefully carried out as to meet the approval of all. These labours, now continued for a series of years, are nearly brought to a successful termination, and the beautiful fabric stands forth and challenges the criticism of the most captious observer, as it equally does the love and veneration of every one of your parishioners. Would there had been no one to mar your work -and above all, would the blow had not been struck by the Bishop of Ripon. The Prebendal Residences, forming the eastern boundary of the churchyard, were erected about four hundred years ago, and they might easily have stood four hundred more. They survived the Reformation, they passed unscathed through destructive civil broils, yet are they doomed to fall, in the year 1850, by a hand more ruthless than both. No one can witness the demolition of this interesting building without pain, and all alike are equally loud in the expression of their astonishment and sorrow. For a long series of years they were the residences of the Prebendaries of the Collegiate Church, many of them alike illustrious for the position they maintained in their lives, and equally honourable in the transmitted and enduring memorials of their usefulness and sanctity. Again, under these almost historic walls, and around these now-demolished But buildings, annually assembled, from every part of Europe, that multitude of traffickers of every kind and description, in whose hands were the trade and commerce of the middle ages, and who sought the shadow of this holy precinct for the protection of their goods and merchandise. Leipsic, and a few other places, yet present similar gatherings, which may be looked upon as the foundation of a commerce which now overshadows the world. neither the reminiscences of their sanctity-their interest as illustrating the manners and customs of a bygone age-neither the love of past generations, nor the veneration of the present, could stay the hand of the destroyer. The materials, for which they have been unroofed, tumbled down, and their very foundations dug up-may be worth forty pounds. In the year 1267, a portion of the cemetery yard was set apart whereon to erect these prebendal residences. So says the order for their endowment. At the dissolution of the Collegiate Church the prebendal property vested in the crown, and was by the crown granted in fee to several grantees, to hold as fully, entirely, and subject to the self-same rights and privileges, as the prebendaries had heretofore held it. This property, then, clearly passed by this grant to the grantees, or, if not, it must have reverted to the parish, as an inalienable portion of the churchyard. The bishops were at no period, and in no way, parties to this endowment, nor did they participate in any grant from the crown. Let us hope, then, that this time-honoured monument of other days will be restored, the wanton destruction of which has equally outraged the feelings of the stranger and the inhabitant. You and your parishioners, at great pains and expence, have laboured twenty years to preserve and restore the beauty and characteristic architecture of one of the most interesting places in England, while three days wanton desecration have more than undone all your labours-aye, and illegally undone them. Let me beg of you to enter the churchyard, and painfully judge for yourself; and would you know the grateful feelings of the inhabitants of Howden towards the Lord of the Manorcircumspice. I am, Reverend Sir, Your obedient Servant, In a few years hardly a trace will remain of these most interesting buildings, nay, their very site will soon be unknown, after an existence of six hundred years. Now, who can wend his way along a path so recently hallowed by such old and endeared reminiscences, without the sense of such a wanton bereavement. Every feeling has been outraged, every youthful and endeared association has been rooted up, the antique character of an old and respectable Town has been as wantonly as barbarously destroyed, and the answer to its reasonable and feeling 'prayer, has been silence, mockery, and insult, The person in whose name this wrong has been done, is an Antiquarian, a Scholar, and a Gentleman, and could he see the effect of a too easy compliance with the representations of others, or could he know the pain he has inflicted, we are assured he would most deeply regret this wanton desecration. But filling the exalted situation he does, this offers no excuse for even passively tolerating an act, disgraceful alike to every one connected with it. In the Heads of the Church, we look for, and we have a right to find, protectors not despoilers, of the ancient monuments of piety and veneration which adorn our Land. It is their duty to see with their own eyes, and deferentially to consider the feelings of the public, and not to leave that public to the Vandalism of their dependants. Let us hope that there is somewhere a Power yet in existence to which we may appeal, and let us hope that our appeal will not be made in vain, "Tandem resurge, et hostium superbiam Hostes protervos, qui tuum sacrarium THE END. W. F. Pratt, Printer. Howden, L' Envoye. On the lone Moor, alike remote O'er the wide Sea when darkness rests, When the pale Moon stoops from her cloud, Her sweet beam like thy sweeter eyes, In smiles, in tears-by day, by night- In heaven, on earth-in life, in death- |