THE LOST CRYPT

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 30, 5 February 1927, Page 20

THE LOST CRYPT

TREASURES FEOM LONDON'S HOARD.

London's cloak is sober grey, but magic went to tho weaving of 'it; do but speak her prettily and she will show you the gold that runs through it and jcwols a-many hidden in its folds (writes Mary Morrissey in the London "Evening News"). Old timbored houses that saw Elizabeth go by green trees her father loved, are London's for our pleasure, and always she gives new treasures from her ancient hoard. Yesterday the Jacobean trinkets hidden by a great fire-scared goldsmith 300 years ago, the day before the very floor of a Roman lady's house here in our city, and now the fair lost crypt of All Hallows-and-Our-Lady-by-the-Tower. Long, long ago, when the gardens were green along the Strand, old tales were told of how the Lion-Heart himself built a chapel where All-Hal-lows stands to-day, and of how the first great Edward was bidden in a vision to raise a statue of Our Lady there, for that he should be Kingl of England and Lord of Scotland and of Wales. Then All-Hallows rose there by the Tower, a holy church indeed, made holier yot by sorrow and by grief. They havo dug the earth away from tho old crypt and given us a new page to turn in our picture-book of dreams. Here may have lain good Bishop Fisher and tho poet Surrey in their last quiet sleep; hero may have come Margaret Eopor to pray for that sweet spirit Thomas More; here runs, for understanding eyes, tho story of England as she wrote it on the Hill, with treachery and courage, sweet faith and bitter hato, in the old merciless days that aro done.