of the imposing spire of Trinity. We think it clumsy, and wanting in lightness of line, and in the whole quality of aspiration which is the first element demanded in a spire. But we insist that its size shall not be brought up against it, because it is undoubtedly according to law that it should be larger than the body of the church would seem to demand. Beside, when we remember that the tower is the best part of the church, we shall find it unreasonable to complain that this is the very part of which they have given us the most. The body of the church is poor, and decidedly wanting in character a crowd of buttresses which support nothing, a foolish battlemented sky line, a double range of very ordinary windows, one serving as a copy for all the rest-this is all that the body of the church has to offer us.

The interior of the church is, at first glance, very fine. It would continue to be considered fine by any criticism which chose to overlook the evident insincerity of the whole affair.

The side-walls, the whole roof, and the chancel are of plaster, colored to imitate stone. The columns of the interior are stone as far up as we can see-we are unable to vouch for more. As we have already said, Nature is asserting herself nobly in damp and mould, and making all the architect's deceptions plain in the light of truth. The "oodwork throughout the church is of ok; the screen in the chancel, the reading desks and chairs, the pulpit, the organ and organ gallery, are all elaborately carved. The church would be ar. object of which our city might well be proud, if it were not for the deceptions

Interior of Grace Church.

borhood. In spite of the fresh coats of paint bestowed upon St. Paul's, and the excellent repair in which it is kept, it has a very venerable appearance, and we believe it is the oldest building in Broadway with one exception. The grand old trees in the churchyard, which are probably coeval with it, are very fitting companions for it. The building of St. Paul's chapel was commenced in 1763, and finished in 1766. It was opened on the 30th of October, 1766; and his excellency Sir Henry Moore expressed a desire of introducing in it a band of music, which request was granted, on the condition that the band should only join in such part of the service as was usual and customary in such cases, and that no other pieces of music

should be allowed but such only as were adapted to the service of the church on such solemn occasions. The inauguration of Washington, as President of the United States, took place, as is well known, at the City Hall. After the ceremonial was over, the general retired, with the civil and military officers in attendance, to St. Paul's Chapel, in order to unite with them in such religious services as were appropriate to the occasion. And here also he frequently received the holy communion."

The spire of St. Paul's, a partial copy from one of Wren's, is a great ornament to our city; and, together with the spire of St. John's, which we have been unable to have engraved in season, deserves a prominent place in any critical notice of New-York church edifices. The tower is placed at the west end of the church, the entrance being at the east. It is built of wood, and painted brown to imitate stone, the same old story, which a man gets so heartily sick of in examining the architecture of New-York, that he can hardly find words strong enough to express his vexation. The body of the

church is of stone or brick stuccoed, on the exterior colored brown, and marked off in lines, to give it the appearance of being built of small blocks of rough stone, The principal porch on Broadway, and the rear porch in the west, with the pediments, together with the cornice and its mouldings are of wood, with stone columns, painted, and sanded. The principal porch, we may add, is very clumsy, and violates all rules of architectural propriety. Thus we have a church dedicated to the worship of a God of Truth, whose ministers declare that he will cast into Hell every thing that loveth or maketh a lie, in which not one of its outward parts is what it pretends to be, but purposes to be something better, more solid, and more costly than it is.

The interior of this chapel is highly interesting, not for its architectural beauty, of which it has little, but for its oldfashioned appearance, and the hints it gives us of the simple tastes and moderate ideas of splendor which belonged to our ancestors. The white pillars—we rejoice that no modern hands have framed

them-and thus made the inside as false as the outside the odd and ugly bits of broken entablature which spoil them, the queer chandeliers of glass, the pulpit with its Damoclean sounding-board, the exceedingly accurate representation of the thunder and lightning on Mount Sinai accompanying the giving of the Law,—all these things will suffice to make a visit to the church very interesting, and we hope no Vandal will presume to alter the church in any particular, until time shall with his destroying finger first have given the sign. Farther up Broadway "the church of the Divine Unity," formerly Unita

amuses us.

rian, now Universalist, astonishes and As seen from Broadway, it is in truth nothing but the front door to a very long and gloomy entry which runs back to the real church-a very large building, full of pretence and cheap expedients, whose rear is on Crosby-street. Exteriorly, the true church building is nothing. painted brick walls, innocent of all deA very blank series of unception, hardly prepare the beholder's mind for the painted splendors of plaster and pencil, and the black walnut wainscoting, and beautifully carved pulpit he will find within.