But there is yet a more effective view still of this charming monument which would escape the careless visitor unless he were directed. Going to the bottom of the street, he will turn to the left, passing through an archway into a curious sort of inclosure, half “industrial tenements,” half stabling. There he will see displayed to him the whole flank of the old Ely Chapel, worn, grey, well rusted. The exceeding beauty and fair proportions of the building are here shown at their best, and one will find much delight in contemplating the four beautiful windows, displaying their extraordinary grace, and contrasted with the steep, tiled roof. These windows would well repay the architect’s study, from their symmetry and the charming way in which they are proportioned to the wall space, while the restorer has done nothing to interfere with the grave and solemn tones of the old wall. At the end can be seen one of the old corner towers, much disfigured and overlaid, but worthy of restoration, and projecting from this corner, at a right angle, are some ruined fragments of what seems the old cloister. CHAPTER XXII. OLD ST. BARTHOLOMEW’S, ST. HELEN’S, AND OTHER CHURCHES. [Illustration: DOORWAY, ST. HELEN’S.] After walking beside the handsome and imposing Smithfield markets for a short distance, we reach the open square where, close to Bartholomew’s Hospital, stands one of the most extraordinary old churches in London, second only in interest to the other antique memorial whereof the worthy Dr. Cox was lately incumbent, viz., St. Helen’s. All that is connected with this venerable fane is characteristic; the approaches and surroundings are piquant, and will surprise the antiquarian visitor. It suggests one of the lorn, abandoned-looking churches we occasionally meet with in one of the “dead cities” of Belgium. We enter under a Gothic arch, cut through an old brick house, one of whose two stories overhangs. This arch is full of grace and very perfect, but a portion of it has been ruthlessly built into the adjoining house, while, with painful incongruity, a “dealer in pickled ox-tongues” proclaims his occupation in large letters over the gate. Passing in we find yet stranger contrasts, for here is seen a sort of “Tom All-alone’s,” a strangely solitary and gloomy churchyard, desolate to a degree, surrounded by backs of gabled houses a couple of centuries old, all rickety and tottering, but inhabited; while the small contracted churchyard shows its old tombstones, scarcely able to keep themselves erect. On the wall to the right are some loose tablets, while facing us rises the old brick tower. There is something so solemn, so grimed and neglected, about the air of this building as to be almost pathetic. This old tower, in its stern and stout decay, has ever a strange effect. It shows all that mournful neglect which so affected Mr. Ruskin in the case of the old Tower at Calais. It suggests its brother of Chelsea, and is