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nelled, and end in clumsy pinnacles. The next story of the tower has the clock dial; and the upper, being the fourth story, has a window composed of three lancet arches of equal height, in every aspect of the elevation; these windows are divided by slender frames of iron, having somewhat the appearance of mullions and tracery, into the compartments shewn in the engraving; above these windows the elevation finishes with a cornice charged with flowers, and a parapet pierced with trefoils inclosed in triangular divisions. Above the pilaster buttresses others of a more slender character take their rise, and are continued to the parapet, above which they finish in crocketted pinnacles, only remarkable for their heaviness and dwarfish elevation. The lateral divisions of the Church contain pointed windows, which have a frame-work of iron within them, a flimsy substitute for mullions and tracery. The returns of these divisions have low arched doorways, with lancet arches in blank above them, and are finished with a similar parapet to the tower, but not pierced. At the angles, and as a mark of distinction between the Church and the lobbies, are buttresses crowned with pinnacles. The body of the Church is made by buttresses into five divisions; and in height, by a string, into two stories, the elevation being finished with a plain parapet. In each division are two windows, the lower being square, the heads bounded by weather cornices; they are divided by iron mullions into three compartments, the whole design being excessively mean, and probably taken from the nearest almshouse. The upper windows are similar to those already described in the west front of the vestibule, and which are shewn in the engraving; and by way of evincing the most decided contempt for ancient authorities, the weather cornices are omitted. In lieu of a clerestory, an unsightly slated roof, in the meeting-house style, crowns the whole structure.

The eastern front is likewise made into three divisions, and the projection of the central one for a charicel would lead the spectator to believe that the usual division into nave and ailes had been adhered to. The exterior face of the east window is very excellent; it is made by mullions into three lights; an elegant circle, and other tracery,

in the best style of the fourteenth century, occupy the head of the arch, with which period the graceful sweep and the moulded archivolt perfectly correspond. A solitary window in the tower already noticed, is also of a correct design; how that and the present happen to have been placed among so many absurdities is unaccountable. The gable above the East window terminates in a pedestal, crowned with a large cross. At the angles of the design are buttresses and pinnacles, and small vestries are erected on each side of the chancel.

From the description of the exterior, we fear our readers will not expect to find many beauties within; and they are not likely to experience what is usually termed an agreeable disappointment. The interior view is quite on a par with the exterior. The entrance in the west front leads into a porch, formed in the basement story of the tower; it is groined with cross springers resting on corbel heads. The entrances in the flanks lead into lobbies, which contain the stairs to the galleries, and communicate laterally with the central porch; from these several vestibules are three entrances through pointed arches into the body of the Church; and here a large area, not divided by pillars and arches, but shewing only one room or hall in the meeting-house style, admirably accords with the pointed style of architecture, and evinces the great attention the architect has paid to our ancient Churches; the walls are finished with a nondescript cornice, on which rests an horizontal ceiling of plaster, divided into huge lozengeshaped compartments by ribs crossing each other diagonally, and ornamented at their junction with a flower. The ceiling and its decorations are perfectly original, and will form a lasting monument of the taste of the architect, and may chance to be admired when the works of Wykeham and Bray are forgotten. The most curious piece of workmanship in the Church is the expedient which arises from the concealment of the head of the east window, which it will be recollected we described in its exterior face as arched, but which, in consequence of the introduction of the modern horizontal ceiling, is cut across at the top of the mullions. With the addition of some ornament a square-headed window is formed, of a design never met

PART 1.]

with in any ancient work; and what was elegant in its outer face, is in the inside converted into a perfect deformity. The spectators who gaze on the altered design, cannot imagine how a window can be square in one point of view, and arched in another; and go away lost in amazement at the ingenuity of the designer.

A gallery of extraordinary dimensions crosses the western end; it is sustained upon twelve iron pillars in three rows. A continuation of the same gallery extends along the side walls to the east end, also sustained on iron columns, the design of which is the architect's own. The fronts are painted white, and are ornamented with arched compartments in relief.

The altar-screen, situated below the eastern window, is bounded by a buttress at each side, ending in an angular cap or pinnacle, and the upright of the screen is finished with a battlement; the whole is oddly enough painted in imitation of Sienna marble, a material probably unknown to our ancestors, except in mosaic work. The decalogue, &c. are inscribed on panels in imitation of porphyry. In the centre of the cornice is placed the King's in such a situation would be deemed arms, carved and painted. A crucifix idolatrous, yet a zealous Church of England man feels no scruple in bowing before the royal arms and supporters, which to an unlettered savage would, in many Churches, really appear to be the only objects of worship. The pulpit and reading-desk are placed on opposite sides of the central aile, at a short distance from the altar. The pulpit is octangular, and rests on a pillar; it is devoid of ornament. The reading-desk is similar, but is lower than the pulpit. The organ is placed in the western gallery; the case is carved oak, representing three square towers with pinnacles; it greatly resembles that in the new Church at Chelsea. On each side the instrument is a spacious gallery for the charity children.

The east window is glazed in small panes of various gaudy colours, green, blue, purple, orange, and yellow, very much resembling a harlequin's jacket; three of the panes are plain glass, one is inscribed with the names of the Minister and Churchwardens of the mother parish in 1827; a second bears the

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arms of the See of London; and a third the following shield and inscription. Arms: Or, a cross moline pierced with a mullet, between three mullets Azure. Crest: On a wreath, a warrior's head in profile, attired in an antique helmet, all proper. "WILLIAM CHADWELL MYLNE, ARCHITECT, 1827." All these subjects are very minute. In the head of the central compartment is painted the descending dove, and the initials I H S. This window was the gift of Thomas Handley, Esq. *

The number of persons who may be accommodated in this Church is 1915, exclusive of fourteen sittings reserved to the New River Company, which Corporation presented the site of the Church. The whole cost to the Commissioners was 16,000l., and the further sum of 2,000l. was voted by the parish. The Church was consecrated Jan. 1, 1828, by the Lord Bishop of London (Dr. Howley). The building has the advantage of an excellent situation, being placed in the midst of an ornamental plantation, forming the centre of Myddelton-square. E. I. C.

ON THE PEOPLING OF AMERICA.

Mr. Rankin, entitled "HistoOME months ago appeared a work by rical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, Mexico, Bogota, Natchez, and Talomeco, in the Thirteenth Century, by the Mongols, accompanied by Elephants," &c. Its object was to account for the numerous traces of Asiatic manners and relics, which are found scattered over various parts of the American continent. This its Author endeavours to do by introducing the agency of the Monguls, a people who had, at one period, overrun the whole of Asia. The Tartar monarch, Kublai, who became master of China in 1280, sent out a vast fleet, three years after, for the invasion of Japan. The expedition proved quite unsuccessful, and, a violent storm arising, nearly the whole fleet was lost, only two or three persons being saved, according to the general accounts, to relate the disaster of the rest.

A considerable part of this fleet, however, Mr. Rankin supposes to have been driven on the coast of America;

* Storer's Clerkenwell, p. 445.

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and he has attempted to prove-"That Mango Capac, the first Inca of Peru, was a son of the Grand Khan Kublai, and that Montezuma's ancestor was a Mongul grandee from Tangut, very possibly Assam."-P. 21.

One of the principal foundations of Mr. Rankin's hypothesis, is the traditional history given by Garcilaso de Vega, and other Authors, of the giants who landed at Cape St. Helen's, who were of a most extraordinary stature, who devoured as much at one meal as was sufficient for fifty men, and who committed the most brutal atrocities upon the natives and their possessions. These, he says, were the Mongols and their elephants, who escaped from the shipwreck at Japan. And on this supposition, wherever any traditions of giants have been preserved, or any remarkable bones discovered, all are traced to the same source; and he carries his Mongolians and their elephants into almost every corner of America-Peru, Colombia, Mexico, California, and various parts of the United States, were all scenes of their numerous battles. The conquests and empire of these people in the western world are represented as exceeding even those of their forefathers in Asia; and yet, within three centuries after, not a trace was left either of Mongols or of elephants, not so much as a traditional remembrance of such things having ever existed; and, amongst all the ancient paintings and sculptures found in the New World, not a figure that bore a distinct resemblance to either. Three centuries, surely, are no great space of time for these conquerors, whom he supposes, at the time of the Spanish discoveries, to have existed in the family of the Incas, to have lost all remembrance of their original country, as well as their language, and most of their characteristics; nor is it customary with conquerors to do so. But Mr. Rankin supposes this remembrance to have been preserved only by the race of the monarch, and not to have been disclosed at all to his subjects. This would lead us to imagine that the first Inca, Mango Capac, was the only Mongol that arrived among them. Yet, how can this be reconciled with what he himself admits, that the Mongols, as well as the elephants, which landed on the new continent, must have been very numerous.

[XCIX.

Besides, Garcilaso de Vega, who wrote the Peruvian history, was himself allied by marriage with the family of the Incas, and, if any more knowledge had been possessed by them than by their subjects, he would certainly have known it; but he does not hint at such a thing. The elephants form the principal argument; it was with them that these supposititious Mongols made all their conquests, and of them they would of course take particular care. To support, indeed, this extraordinary hypothesis, they must have increased in equal proportion with the men; consequently, as long as the conquerors existed, we should expect to find the elephants existing too. But to account for the total want of any remembrance of such animals, we must suppose that they had ceased to exist long before the time which it would have required to make the conquests he talks of.

With the history of the giants there is no one particular in which the expedition of the Mongols will agree. The giants were, in a short time, entirely annihilated. They arrived, moreover, in "rafts made of rushes, like large barks,” (en unas balsas de juncos, à manera de grandes barcas. Garcil. de Vega, lib. ix. c. 9.) which would imply that, let them have come from whencesoever they might, they had made but a coasting voyage. The notion in itself, of a fleet being wrecked amongst the isles of Japan, and finally cast on the coast of Peru, with so little damage as to support this hy pothesis they must have sustained, is almost as preposterous as to suppose a fleet wrecked on the British coast, to be thrown in safety on the shores of Patagonia.

That the inhabitants of the New World, when discovered, bore many marks of Asiatic origin none can deny; but to prove these marks were introduced by Mongols, will require stronger arguments than have yet been adduced. There is not, indeed, any single apparent agreement between them, which may not be applied equally to any other Asiatic tribe. "The Indians of Peru," says Mr. Rankin, "had such fear of an eclipse, that as soon as it began, they made a terrible noise with trumpets, horns, atabales, and drums."-"In China, as soon as the sun or moon begins to be darkened, they all throw themselves