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In 1515, 13s. were paid " for 12 burden of Rushes for the White-Hall."

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And, in 1544, 1s. 5d. were paid Rushes against the Dedicacion day, St. Margaret's, in Westminster, which is always on the first Sunday in October.

Rushes, it would therefore seem, were used for warmth and ornament in Winter, both in Churches, and in the Halls of entertainment, as well as in Summer, for coolness.

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Preaching in the open air appears to have been common in 1478, as we find an Item in the Churchwardens' Accompts of St. Margaret's, in Westminster, of 2s. 8d. "for a pulpytte in the Church-yard, against the preaching of Dr. PENKEY."'38

This Dr. PENKEY or PENKER was one of the "Churchmen," whom RICHARD the Third, in his deep hypocrisy, sent for, to

36 Nichols's Accompts of Churchwardens, p. 37 Ibid. p. 12.

38 Ibid. p.

p. 2.

6.

give due semblance to the "holy descant" of BUCKINGHAM,—

Go, Lovel, with all speed to Doctor Shaw,→ Go thou (to Catesby) to Friar Penker;-bid them both Meet me, within this hour, at Baynard's Castle.

King Richard the Third, Act iii. Sc, v.

PAUL'S CROSS, AND PREACHING THERE,

The subject of Crosses forms a class in the system of Old English Architecture of very high interest. The great variety and general beauty of their forms, their age, and a sort of traditional Sanctity attached to them, unite to impress the mind of the beholder with sentiments of veneration not easily to be described. Considered as fragments of National costume, as memorials of the skill and piety of our forefathers, the man of taste must ever lament their destruction, and reprobate that excess of indiscriminatng zeal in our Reformers, which, in seeking the overthrow

of Superstition, too often waged war with the Fine Arts.39

SRAKESPEARE, in The Merchant of Venice, beautifully observes,

"She strays about

"At holie Crosses, where she kneels and praies "For happy wedlock houres."

The early celebrity of Paul' Cross, as the great seat of Pulpit eloquence, is evinced in the "Visions of Pierce Plowman,"

— "Friers and faytours, have foudon such questions,

"To plese with the proud men, sith the pestilece tyme, "And preachen at S. Paul's, for pure envi for clarkes, "That praiers have no powre the pestilence to lette,”

whence we are informed that the most subtile and abstract questions in Theo·logy were handled here by the Friars, in opposition to the Regular Clergy, almost at the first settlement of that popular Order of Preachers in England.

Of the custom of Preaching at Crosses,

39 Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata, p. 9.

it is difficult to trace the origin,—it was, doubtless, far more remote than the time alluded to, and probably, at first, was merely accidental. The sanctity of this species of Pillar often caused a great resort of people, to pay their devotion to the great object of their erection. A Preacher, seeing a large concourse, might be seized by a sudden impulse, ascend the steps, and deliver out his pious advice from a station so fit to inspire attention, and so conveniently formed for the purpose. The example might be followed, until the practice became established by custom.

This famous Cross was in all probability, at first, a common Cross, and coeval with the Church. When it was first covered and used as a Pulpit-Cross, we are not informed. We hear, however, of it's being in use as early as the year 1259, when HENRY the Third in person, commanded the Mayor to swear before him every stripling of twelve years old and upwards to be true to him and his heirs. From this time it's name continually oc

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curs in history. It was used not only for the instruction of mankind, by the doctrine of the Preacher, but for every purpose, political or ecclesiastical, for giving force to oaths, for promulgating of laws, or rather the Royal pleasure, for the emission of Papal Bulls, for anathematizing sinners, for benedictions, for exposing of Penitents under censure of the church, for recantations, for the private ends of the ambitious, and for the defaming of those who had incurred the displeasure of Crowned heads,

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Here is the indictment of the good Lord
Hastings:

Which in a set hand fairly is engross'd

That it may be to-day read o'er in Paul's.

King Richard the Third, Act iii, Sc. vi.

STOWE describes it as being in his time, a Pulpit Crosse of timber, mounted upon steppes of stone, and covered with leade,

standing in the middest of the Church

yard, the very antiquitie whereof was to "him unknowne," in which the most eminent Divines were appointed to

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