Of the galleries, so often enumerated in Paterson’s account of London Churches (1714) among recently erected ‘ornaments,’ little need be said, except that they were often wholly unnecessary, or only made necessary by the great loss of space squandered in the promiscuous medley of square and ill-shaped pews.  It was an object of some ambition to have a front seat in the gallery.  ’The people of fashion exalt themselves in church over the heads of the people of no fashion.’[895] A crowded London church in the old times, gallery above gallery thronged with people, was no doubt an impressive spectacle, not soon to be forgotten.  To many the thought of galleried churches will revive a different set of remembrances.  Dusky corners, a close and heavy atmosphere, back seats for children and the scantily favoured, to which sound reached as a drowsy hum, and where sight was limited to the heads of people in their pews, to their hats upon the pillars, and perhaps an occasional half-view of the clergyman in the pulpit, seen at intervals through the interstices of the gallery supports—­such are the recollections which will occur to some.  Certainly they are calculated to animate even an excessive zeal for opening out churches, and creating wider space and freer air.

And who does not remember some of the other special adjuncts of an old-fashioned church, as it had been handed down little altered from the time of our great-grandfathers?  There were the half-obliterated escutcheons, scarcely less dismal in aspect than the coffin plates with which the columns of the Welsh churches were so profusely decorated.  No wonder Blair introduces into his poem on ‘The Grave’ a picture of—­

                                the gloomy aisles
    Black plastered, and hung round with shreds of ’scutcheons.[896]

And then, in the place of the ancient rood loft, was that masterpiece of rural art—­

    Moses and Aaron upon a church wall,
    Holding up the Commandments, for fear they should fall.[897]

There was the glorified record of the past deeds of parish officials, well adapted to fire the emulation of a succeeding generation—­

    With pride of heart, the Churchwarden surveys
    High o’er the belfry, girt with birds and flowers,
    His story wrought in capitals:  ’twas I
    That bought the font; and I repaired the pews.[898]

There were the tables of benefactors conspicuous under the western gallery.  The Lower House of Convocation in 1710 had issued special directions in recommendation of this practice.  The bishops also—­Fleetwood,[899] Secker,[900] and others—­did not fail to enjoin it in their charges.  And not without reason; for a great number of parish benefactions appear to have been lost by lapse or otherwise about the beginning of the eighteenth century.  Yet smaller letters, and a less prominent position, might have served the same purpose, with less disfigurement, and less offence to the decent humility which best befits the deeds of Christian benevolence.