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] remarkable. Jones added a back front to Somerset House, and a west front to St. Paul's, neither of which remain. That Inigo Jones was far from having conceived the true principles of architecture was shown by the fact that his west front of old St. Paul's was a classical one engrafted on a Gothic building, and this solecism he was continually repeating. One of the most glaring instances of the kind, is a classical screen which he raised in the Norman cathedral of Durham. Amongst the chief remaining buildings of Inigo Jones, and from which an idea of his talent may be drawn, are St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, of which Quatremere de Quincy says, the most remarkable thing about it is the reputation that it enjoys; York Stairs, Ashburnham House, Westminster, a house on the west side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, originally built for the earl of Lindsay, Surgeon's Hall, an addition to St. John's College, Oxford, and by far his finest work, Heriot's Hospital at Edinburgh.

The general aspect of our towns and streets remained the same at this period as in the former. James issued proclamation after proclamation, ordering the citizens to leave off the half-timbered style, and build the fronts at least entirely of brick or stone; but this was little attended to, and many a strange old fabric continued to show the fashions of past ages.



MANNERS AND CUSTOMS.

If we are to believe the memoir writers and dramatists of this period, the national manners and morals had suffered a Elizabeth, there was a certain dignity and outward decorum preserved, but James introduced such a coarseness and grossness of manner, such low debauch and buffoonery, that ever the salutary restraint which fashion had imposed, was stripped away, and all classes exhibited the most revolting features. In the reign of Henry, Edward, and Elizabeth, we had such women as the daughter of Sir Thomas More, lady Jane Grey, Catherine Parr, and others, who cultivated literature and philosophy, the queens Mary and Elizabeth setting themselves the example in reading and translating the most illustrious classical authors. But after James came in, notwithstanding all his learned pedantry, you hear nothing more of such tastes amongst the court ladies, and it is very singular that amid that blaze of genius which distinguished the time under review, we find no traces of feminine genius there. On the contrary, both our own dramatists and foreign writers describe the morals and manures of women of rank as almost destitute of delicacy and probity. They are described as mingling with gentlemen in taverns amid tobacco smoke, songs, and conversation of the most ribald character. That they allowed freedoms which would startle women of the lowest rank in these times, were desperate gamblers, and those who had the opportunity were wholesale dealers in political influence. Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, boasts of the effect of the bribes that he was accustomed to distribute amongst them. Whilst such women as the decided deterioration. Licentious as was the court of queen infamous and murderous countess of Essex and the