capped by one of those quaint, old-fashioned belfries so common in the City. There is always something melancholy and grim in these solemn remnants, standing up stark and stiff, and still unshaken, though their “day” has long since gone by. Here too is the old rusted clock with its faded gold characters. Even the little, disused doorway and balcony half-way up have an odd, _bizarre_ look. No church has ever met with such rude, pitiless treatment as this. One would think that it was regarded with the dislike some unnatural mother has to her child, for every kind of affront and neglect seems to have been heaped upon it. Everyone was welcome to treat it as he listed. A long and handsome nave once covered the ground now devoted to the churchyard, and was ruthlessly levelled some centuries ago. Aisles and chapels were cut away bodily, and converted into dwellings. A blacksmith’s forge was formed out of one of the transepts, while a fringe factory was actually carried on over the Lady chapel, or all that remained of it. A walk round the grand and maltreated old building--one of the most curious and original sights in London for the antiquary--reveals how encrusted it is on all sides with lawlessly encroaching tenements which have preyed on it during centuries. It is one of the most curious feelings to go round outside, groping as it were in search of these adjuncts, and to actually find them. Round the old church are to be found Rouen-like streets, highly antique and picturesque, such as “Cloth Fair,” with old, overhanging houses, and space for but a single carriage to pass; the backs of most of which tenements are caked and crusted to the old fane. Overpowered as it is, we can see it struggling uneasily with these oppressive neighbours. By diving down [Illustration: ST. HELEN’S.] strange lanes and passages and _culs de sac_ we obtain stray peeps at its venerable figure. Here is an old dilapidated Gothic window sunk down in a pit, with a fragment of a chapel covered with fine mouldings. Indeed, this little quarter could scarcely be matched as a characteristic specimen of a certain phase of London life in the City, where the herd of workers cluster together thickly and economize every inch of space. At front, sides, and rear of the old fane, old and new wooden and brick houses are heaped together in disorder, according as the convenience of the site offered favourable opportunity. Close by is a little flagged square with a dozen alleys starting from it, with two or three old mansions of last century. No alley runs straight for a dozen yards together, but winds and twists, and perhaps brings you back, to your surprise, to the point from which you started.