As the commencement of a series of sketches of the Churches of the Metropolis, we cannot select one more worthy of the exertion of the artist, or the gratification of the reader, than the one of which a view is given at the head of the present article—St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields. We need not speculate on the years that have elapsed since that portion of its name which was given it as a distinction became a complete misnomer. We are not particularly disposed “to babble of green fields,” to sigh over the growth and spread of that mighty city which, if it usurps something on nature yet speaks of the irrepressible energies of man. There is a balance of good in all things; and it may be questioned whether the conversion of country to town has not created more human happiness than would have existed had it remained country still. Bricks and mortar form but a dingy combination; chimneys are less picturesque than waving branches; and hard flagstones are less pleasant to the tread than a green turf enamelled with daisies; and, as a whole, our common street and domestic architecture is about the ugliest and most repulsive on the face of the earth. Yet in spite of all regrets, utility predominates, and use and necessity banish the beautiful. It is a matter in which society obeys its own impulses, as careless of the regrets of poetry as if they were but the echoes of the pipings of Arcadia; and society is right.
