On the right of the choir, near a handsome marble piscina, is the effigy of a bishop, usually shown as that of Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, by whom the church was consecrated, but he left England in a fury, after Henry II. refused to perform his vow of joining the Crusades in person, to atone for the murder of Becket.  The figure more probably represents Silverston de Eversdon, Bishop of Carlisle, 1255.  In the vestry are monuments to Lords Eldon and Stowell, and that of Lord Thurlow (1806) by Rossi.

The organ, by Father Smydt or Smith, is famous from the long competition it underwent with one by Harris.  Both were temporarily erected in the church.  Blow and Purcell were employed to perform on that of Smith; Battista Draghi, organist to Queen Catherine, on that of Harris.  Immense audiences came to listen, but tho the contest lasted a year they could arrive at no decision.  Finally, it was left to Judge Jefferies of the Inner Temple, who was a great musician, and who chose that of Smith.

Lambeth—­church and palace [Footnote:  From “Walks in London.”]

BY AUGUSTUS J.C.  HARE

The Church of St. Mary, Lambeth, was formerly one of the most interesting churches in London, being, next to Canterbury Cathedral, the great burial place of its archbishops, but falling under the ruthless hand of “restorers” it was rebuilt (except its tower of 1377) in 1851-52 by Hardwick, and its interest has been totally destroyed, its monuments huddled away anywhere, for the most part close under the roof, where their inscriptions are of course wholly illegible!...

Almost the only interesting feature retained in this cruelly abused building is the figure of a pedler with his pack and dog (on the third window of the north aisle) who left “Pedlar’s Acre” to the parish, on condition of his figure being always preserved on one of the church windows.  The figure was existing here as early as 1608.

In the churchyard, at the east end of the church, is an altar tomb, with the angles sculptured like trees, spreading over a strange confusion of obelisks, pyramids, crocodiles, shells, etc., and, at one end, a hydra.  It is the monument of John Tradescant (1638) and his son, two of the earliest British naturalists.  The elder was so enthusiastic a botanist that he joined an expedition against Algerine corsairs on purpose to get a new apricot from the African coast, which was thenceforth known as “the Algier Apricot.”  His quaint medley of curiosities, known in his own time as “Tradeskin’s Ark,” was afterward incorporated with the Ashmolean Museum....