each
side, and the dimensions are about 70 feet by 32 feet high. The interior
is not much more imposing, but the screen, in richly-carved oak, set up
in 1565, is handsome, and there is a picture by Hogarth of St. Paul
before Felix.

Mr. Spilsbury, the librarian, seems to have proved conclusively that the
chapel, which stands at right angles to the old hall, was a new building
when it was consecrated in 1623. There is no direct evidence that it was
designed by Inigo Jones; on the other hand, there is a record in
existence which testifies that the Society intended to employ him. John
Clarke was the builder. There was an older chapel in a ruinous
condition, which there is reason to believe had been that of the
Bishops, as it was dedicated to St. Richard of Chichester. Mr. Spilsbury
quotes one of the Harleian manuscripts, written in or about 1700, in
which Inigo is named as the architect, and Vertue's engraving of 1751
also mentions him. The chapel is elevated on an open crypt, which was
intended for a cloister. Butler's "Hudibras" speaks of the lawyers as
waiting for customers between "the pillar-rows of Lincoln's Inn." There
were three bays, divided by buttresses, each of which was surmounted by
a stone vase, a picturesque but incongruous arrangement, which was
altered in the early days of the Gothic revival, being the first of a
series of "restorations" to which the chapel has been subjected. A more
serious offence against taste was the erection of a fourth bay at the
west end, by which the old proportions are lost. It looks worst on the
outside, however, and the fine old windows of glass stained in England,
apparently after a Flemish design, are calculated to disarm criticism.
Mr. Spilsbury attributes them to Bernard and Abraham van Linge, but the
glass was made by Hall, of Fetter Lane. The monuments commemorate, among
others, Spencer Perceval, murdered in 1812, and a daughter of Lord
Brougham, who died in 1839, and was buried in the crypt. The office of
chaplain was in existence as early as the reign of Henry VI. The
preachership was instituted in 1581, and among those who held the office
were John Donne, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, who preached the first
sermon when the chapel was new. Herring, another preacher, was made
Archbishop of York in 1743, and of Canterbury in 1747. Another
Archbishop of York, William Thomson, was preacher here, and was promoted
in 1862. The greatest of the list was, perhaps, Reginald Heb