Crossing Blackfriars-bridge from the Surrey side of the river, the eye rests with peculiar satisfaction upon two spires which the most casual gazer would distinguish and select from the hundred which throng so closely upon each other in the City. That upon the right of St. Paul’s, tapering so lightly and gracefully above its compeers,—small by degrees and beautifully less,—is the spire of St. Mary-le-Bow; the masterpiece of Sir Christopher Wren in that branch of his labours, and the owner of those famous bells whose sound is said to christen Cockney all those born within reach of the noisy music. The spire on the left of the bridge is claimed by Saint Bride’s, and forms another of our architect’s “records of a difficulty overcome.” Second only to Bow in the elegance of its proportions, its symmetry and grace challenge and obtain a prompt approval. In its composition Sir Christopher introduced three styles, which yet blend harmoniously, and, with the adjuncts of vases, the outline is rendered gracefully pyramidal. In the two lower stories we have the Tuscan, in the next the Ionic, in the fifth the Composite. Before Franklin taught us how to carry harmless into the earth the electricity of a descending cloud, this spire, like most others, met with its mischances from lightning, having twice been struck by it. After one of the reparations thus rendered necessary, the steeple was shortened, and we do not, therefore, now see it in all the elegance of its original proportions.
Until 1824 the point of view from the bridge was the only one in which St. Bride’s could be seen; and it is still one of the best. In that year a fire occurred in Fleet-street, and by the destruction of the adjoining houses it was discovered that an architectural ornament had been hidden up; and, a subscription being set on foot, the present approach, as shown in our engraving, and known as St. Bride’s-avenue, was formed. The body of the church externally offers little for notice or comment; the interior is reached through the chief entrance by a porch formed within the tower, and containing amongst others the monument of Alderman Waithman, for many years one of the representatives of the City in Parliament,—a service repaid by an obelisk to his memory, erected not far from the church, and opposite the shop in which he, from being a poor country youth, gained a goodly fortune, and held the highest offices to which his fellow-citizens could raise him. The church internally consists of an area divided by columns into nave and aisles, and a recess forming a chancel. The last is profusely decorated, and its window has a copy in stained glass of the ‘Descent from the Cross’ by Rubens. The original picture is at Antwerp,—in the cathedral,—and the first feeling upon viewing this copy by Mr. Mass is one of surprise that he should have allowed himself so bold a licence in heightening the contrasts of the original. Upon glass it is rather a Rembrandt than a Rubens, the light being given almost entirely to the central figure, the accessory group being shrouded in one gloomy shadow. Still must considerable credit be given, and, when the material upon which the artist has had to work is taken into consideration, perhaps he is entitled to all the praise which has been awarded him.
The original church of St. Bride was a much less imposing structure than the present. It was founded at a very early date, and received its name from St. Bridgid, “a pious virgin of Kildare, in Ireland.” St. Bride, as she has been called in England, had, also, like other saints, a holy well, whose water was supposed to be gifted with miraculous virtues in the cure of those who drank it when afflicted with disease. St. Bride’s well was second to none in reputation; and the youthful Edward the Sixth, when he founded the hospital,—since converted into a prison,—named it Bridewell, from its neighbourhood to the well-known spring. The curious or thirsty wanderer through the narrow ways between the end of Fleet-street and Blackfriars may have detected a niche in the high graveyard wall, containing a most unpoetical-looking pump. That is the present dispenser of the holy water to those who are not scared from drinking it on account of its half-buried position below the thickly-crowded graveyard.
In the days when the nobility had their town houses in the city of London, the Earl of Dorset’s abode was where Dorset-court now stands. To induce the parish not to bury on the south side of the church, under his windows, the earl gave them a piece of ground on the west side of Farringdon-street, to be used as a cemetery. But the Great Fire which destroyed so many noble houses, antique churches, and rich warehouses, enveloped in its ravages the mansion of the Earl of Dorset, with that of his near neighbour, the Bishop of Salisbury, and the old church of st. Bride; and since that time burials have been made round the church as they had been before.
Like all our London churches, St. Bride has its memories of men whose names live after them. In the old church, one of the fathers of printing, Wynkin de Worde, found a resting-place, and Baker, too, the author of the “Chronicles of the Kings of England,” was buried, after an incarceration in the Fleet,—where many a bold heart had been broken before, and many a clear head has since been half crazed. Sir Richard Lovelace, also, after being a pattern or cavaliers and soldier-poets—after losing his fortune and his best years in the service of his unfortunate master, Charles the First, and bequeathing to after time some of the beat of the fanciful conceits which were the poetic fashion of his age-his king dead, his mistress, his divine Althes, married to another, his fortune gone, his health broken down by imprisonment and reverses—poor, sick, and hopeless—died in a miserable lodging in Shoe-lane, and found a grave at St. Bride’s. Close by, the heart and hand of Sackvil, the Lord Buckhurst of Elizabeth’s reign, had previously been buried.
The present church contains the tombs of Nichols, the author of the history of Leicestershire, and of Richardson, of “Sir Charles Grandison” and “Pamela” memory,—books which in their day out-vied all modern parallel in popularity, but which are now perhaps never looked at except from curiosity, as affording a picture of by-gone manners. A modern literary name is associated with St. Bride’s, in that of the present incumbent, the Rev. Thomas Dale, who received the living in 1835, unsolicited and unexpectedly, at the hands of Sir R. Peel. He is a poet and a master of the English language of no ordinary calibre. His style is chaste and pure, and his lectures popular. His poems have chiefly partaken of a devotional character.
The Illustrated London News, London, England, Week Ending December 3, 1842
