than ten years' labour.

There are some most beautiful, even amongst these all-beautiful
engravings, which we much regret to see there--engravings of the
tapestry in the cathedral of Aix, which tapestry ought still to enrich
our own country. Shame on those under whose barbarous rule these,
amongst other valuable and cherished monuments, were, as relics of
papistry, bartered for foreign gold. "L'histoire manuscrite de la
ville d'Aix dit que cette tapisserie avait servi a l'eglise de St.
Paul de Londres ou a toute autre eglise cathedrale d'Angleterre; qu'a
l'epoque de la Reformation, les tableaux et les tapisseries ayant ete
exclus des temples, les Anglais chercherent a vendre dans les pays
etrangers quelques-unes des tapisseries qui ornaient leurs
cathedrales, et _qu'ils en brulerent un plus grand nombre_!"

This tapestry represents the history of our Saviour, in twenty seven
compartments, being in the whole about 187 feet long. It is supposed
to have been woven about 1511, when William Warham was Archbishop of
Canterbury, and Chancellor. Warham had been previously Bishop of
London; and as his arms are on this tapestry, and also the arms of two
prior bishops of London who are supposed to have left legacies to
ornament the church which were applied towards defraying the expenses
of this manufacture, it seems quite probable that its destination was
St. Paul's, and not any other cathedral church. The arms of the king
are inwrought in two places; for Henry contributed to the
embellishment of this church. He loved the arts; he decorated
churches; and though he seceded from the Roman communion, he
maintained throughout his life magnificent decorations in his
favourite churches as well as the worship of the ancient Catholic
Church. It was first under Edward, and more decidedly under Elizabeth,
that the ceremonies of the church were completely changed, and that
those which had been considered only decent and becoming were
stigmatised as popish. Nor did this fantasy reach its height until the
time of Cromwell.

Lord Douglas, Earl of Buchan, who founded the Society of Antiquaries
in Edinburgh, endeavoured during the interval of the Peace of Amiens,
to treat with the Archbishop of Aix for the repurchase of this
tapestry. He would have placed it in a Gothic church belonging to an
ancient Scotch Abbey on his domains. He had already ornamented this
church with several beautiful monuments of antiquity, and he wished to
place this t