S. Mildred's, Bread Street, is another church belonging to this date. It is so hidden by the tall warehouses that have sprung up round it that it is but little known; but its red brick tower, tall spire, and, above all, its most light and graceful dome, are all after Wren's best manner. The destruction of this beautiful little church has actually been threatened, but it has been ably defended, and it is to be hoped it will not add another name to the black list of desecrated City churches. [Sidenote: _S. JAMES'S, WESTMINSTER._] A third church belonging to this year is S. James's, Westminster, then called 'in the fields,' from the large parish of S. Martin's, out of which it was taken. It was built principally at the expense of Henry Jermyn, Earl of S. Albans, Wren's Paris friend, who gave his name to Jermyn Street, where the church stands. The proportions of S. James's and the technical skill displayed in building it, especially the construction of the roof, have been always admired. Wren, who was allowed but a moderate sum to expend upon it, was proud of having combined beauty with 'the cheapest of any form I could invent.'[184] When the church was newly done, with its bricks red instead of darkly grimed with smoke, with the handsome pillared entrance to the south aisle, a flight of steps leading up to it, which have vanished, leaving only as a mark the closed iron gates in the railings, without the strange excrescence that now does duty as a porch--its exterior must have been far more attractive than it is now; the little pinched steeple[185] is said, as indeed one would imagine, to be no building of Wren's. Within, Evelyn[186] gives us his description of the effect. 'I went to see the new church at S. James's elegantly built; the altar was especially adorned, the white marble inclosure curiously and richly carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr. Gibbons in wood; a pelican with her young at her breast, just over the altar in the carved compartment and border, invironing the purple velvet fringed with I.H.S. richly embroidered, and most noble plate were given by Sir R. Geere to the value (as was said) of 200_l._ There was no altar anywhere in England nor has there been abroad more handsomely adorned.'