1780 — 85 .]

THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

131

The third relates to a monk, but the precise dateof his decease is defaced :—

t

FR. HYACINTHVS

OBIIT DIE.

169 £

REQVIESCATIN PACE.

The other inscriptions were too much obliteratedto enable me to transcribe them; but I have no doubtthat some zealous antiquary would succeed in thetask; and archaeologists may be glad to know thatwithin a few yards of the Strand lie these interestingrelics of the past 3 .

The terrace on the river side is raised on rusticarches. The view from hence is by far the finest onthe banks of metropolitan Thames 4 . St Paul’s, the

3 I am informed that the Mortuary Registers of the Chapelattached to old Somerset House were in the possession of the lateDr. Fryer, chaplain to the Portuguese Embassy.

4 Some portions of Cowley’s poetical description of old Somer-set House hold good in the present day :—

“ Before my gate a street’s broad channel goes,

Which still with waves of crowding people flows;

And every day there passes by my side,

Up to its western reach, the London tide,

The spring-tides of the term; my front looks downOn all the pride and business of the town;

K 2 My