S. Michael Royal, College Hill, belongs to this same date, and was built under Wren's directions by Edward Strong, his master-mason. It is a well-lit, handsome church with a tower at one corner, and contains an altar-piece of singular beauty, carved by Grinling Gibbons in 'right wainscot oak.' The old church was founded and made a collegiate church of S. Spiritus and S. Mary by no less a person than Sir Richard Whittington, three times Lord Mayor of London (1397, 1406, 1419), whose fame, with that of his cat, survives in the well-known story. He founded also another college, known as the Whittington College, and endowed it with a divinity lecture 'for ever.' Edward VI., however, suppressed both the colleges and the lecture, though the Whittington College was allowed partially to survive as almshouses for poor men. Whittington[210] was buried in this church, but his monument perished in the Fire. In the following year Wren added a well-proportioned, peculiar steeple, the gift of the parishioners, to the little stone Church of S. Vedast[211] in Foster Lane, a church to which a painful interest now attaches from the recent persecution and imprisonment of its rector, the Rev. T. P. Dale. The church was decorated, as was Wren's custom, with fret-work, carving, and stucco, but is not otherwise remarkable. S. Mary's, Somerset, or Somers'hithe, was likewise finished in this year: a stone church with two aisles surmounted by a handsome cornice and balustrade; its great feature was the beautiful pinnacled tower, which, though the church is gone, still stands a perpetual memorial of that reckless disregard of God's honour, which has counted any common want, any farthing of money, of more importance than the claims of His service, or than gifts solemnly offered to Him.[212] [_CLIPT WINGS._] [_A GRAND DESIGN._]