There are within little more than a mile of our old friend Temple Bar three great depositories of ecclesiastical records of inestimable value and of unknown richness--one at the Archiepiscopal Palace of Lambeth, one at St. Paul’s, one in the precincts of Westminster Abbey. (1) The collection of MSS. at Lambeth was very ably catalogued nearly eighty years ago, and is readily accessible to all who are desirous and competent to make an intelligent use of the treasures it contains. (2) The archives of St. Paul’s comprehend not only the muniments of the great Metropolitan Chapter, but those also of the bishopric of London. The Chapter records have been examined and reported upon by the present Deputy Keeper in the _Ninth Report of the Historic MSS. Commission_. Of course Mr. Lyte has done his work in a masterly way, and to the wonder and despair of smaller men who have tried their ’prentice hands at such employment; but he warns us that “the greater part of the collection _has never yet been examined for literary or historical purposes_;” and so far from this important assemblage of original documents being accessible to research, Mr. Lyte, when he began his examination, found it stowed away in boxes “in an octagonal chamber above the Dean’s vestry,” and one box full of ancient documents had been discovered by the Bishop of Oxford “in a loft over the Chapter House.” The extent, interest, and importance of the capitular records to historical students is in the present condition of our knowledge quite incalculable. But the archives of the _diocese_ of London are also said to be kept in St. Paul’s. Thirty years ago, when I was very young at this kind of work, I obtained permission to make a search among the muniments of the Bishop of London for certain small fragments of information which, in the glorious hopefulness of youth, I was bent on discovering. During three short December days I was privileged to climb to a certain chamber in a certain tower of St. Paul’s, and there to immure myself for five or six hours at a time. There is a region where beings who succeed in retaining their personality must needs be the sport of the vortices that whirl and eddy through the “vast inform,” where “Chaos umpire sits” and “next him high arbiter Chance governs all.” But in such a region none may hope to find anything that he can carry away. I emerged from that three-days’ audacious voyage of discovery with my intellect only a little disordered and my constitution only a trifle shattered, and I survive to speak of that bewildering and horrible experience as men speak of their confused recollection of an escape from drowning. From that day to this I have never met with a human being who had ever been bold enough to search among the archives of the bishopric of London or who could tell me anything about them, good or bad.