Cleveland, the bold cavalier colonel under Charles I., has a few spirited lines on the May-pole, but which are scarcely quotable, so hard does he hit the puritanical Tabithas and Obadiahs; we quote a few lines:
“Whether it be a pole painted, or wrought
Far otherwise than from the wood ’twas brought,
Whose head the idol-maker’s hand doth crop,
Where a profane bird, towering on the top,
Looks like the calf in Horeb, at whose root
The unyoked youth doth exercise his foot:
* * * *
How canst thou chuse, but, seeing it, complain
That Baal’s worshipp’d in his groves again?”
The last line might have been uttered by some crop-eared holder-forth, who fought as well as preached under Cromwell. The church of St. Mary-le-Strand stands on the spot where the May-pole was formerly erected. It was built by Gibbs (1717), whose portico of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields remains unrivalled for its beauty. The old church stood nearer the river, and was pulled down by the Duke of Somerset, 1549, who used the materials for building Somerset-place, but was beheaded before he had completed it. We forget in what old work we found a long account attempting to prove that he lost his head through destroying the church of St. Mary and the Innocents, as the old church was called.
Passing the present Somerset House (which is now used as Government offices, and of which we merely give an engraving) and Waterloo Bridge, both of which are deserving of a separate article, we will turn down to the left and glance at the old church of St. Mary-le-Savoy, which is all that now remains of the once famous Savoy Palace, first built above six hundred years ago, but destroyed by Wat Tyler and his rebels; after which it lay in ruins for above a century and a half. The present chapel, as it is called, was built in 1505. Our engravings represent the exterior and a portion of the interior. It contains several old monuments and crosses.