THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION. VOL. 19, NO. 546.] SATURDAY, MAY 12, 1832. [PRICE 2d. * * * * * ST. PANCRAS (OLD) CHURCH. [Illustration: ST. PANCRAS (OLD) CHURCH.] This humble village fane is situated to the north of London, somewhat more than a mile from Holborn Bars. Persons unacquainted with the site, may hitherto have considered it as part and parcel of this vast metropolis: but, lo! here it stands amidst much of its primitive, peaceful rusticity. Pancras is still, by courtesy, called a _village_, though its charms may be of the _rus-in-urbe_ description. It derives its name from the saint to whom the church is dedicated:[1] it was called St. Pancras when the Survey of Domesday was taken. The parish is of great extent. Mr. Lysons states it at 2,700 acres of land, including the site of buildings. It is bounded on the north by Islington, Hornsey, and Finchley; and on the west by Hampstead and Marybone. On the south it meets the parishes of St. Giles's in the Fields, St. George the Martyr, St. George, Bloomsbury, and St. Andrew's, Holborn.[2] On the east it is bounded by St. James's, Clerkenwell. Kentish Town, part of Highgate, Camden Town, and Somer's Town,[3] are comprised within this parish as hamlets. Mr. Lysons supposes it to have included the prebendal manor of Kentish Town,[4] or Cantelows, which now constitutes a stall in St. Paul's Cathedral. Among the prebendaries have been men eminent for their learning and piety: as Lancelot Andrews, bishop of Winchester, Dr. Sherlock, Archdeacon Paley, and the Rev. William Beloe, B.D. well known by his translation of Herodotus. [1] St. Pancras was a young Phrygian nobleman, who suffered death under the Emperor Dioclesian, for his zealous adherence to the Christian faith. [2] Lysons's Environs, 4to. vol. ii. part ii. [3] The parish extends in this direction to the foot of Gray's Inn Lane, and includes part of a house in Queen's Square. [4] Anciently Kentistonne, where William Bruges, Garter King at Arms in the reign of Henry V. had a country-house, at which he entertained the emperor Sigismund.