Saint Faith, holding a gridiron, being addressed in prayer by a monk; the Crucifixion below. Etching after J. Schnebbelie, 1821.

"Mr. Urban, Dec. 6. Having accidentally met with the following letter from a former Draughtsman to the Society of Antiquaries, giving an account of a chapel in Westminster Abbey, little known to the numerous visitors of that venerable pile, I beg you to preserve it in your pages, as it contains a more minute description than is to be found in any of the numerous works on the Abbey. Sir, The chapel of St. Blaze, in Westminster Abbey (see Plate II.) is of an oblong form, measuring from east to west fifty-two feet … The altar (see Plate II.) was under a pointed arch, richly ornamented, the front painted brown, and the joints of the stone covered with thin slips of white metal gilt; the back is painted of a bluish dark colour; the sides and soffit with zigzag stripes, red and white. On the back is painted a beautiful female figure as large as life, dressed in a robe lined with fur, holding a small book in her right hand, and on the thumb of her left hand hangs an instrument with seven bars, not unlike a gridiron without a handle; on her head is a crown, and her hair flows in ringlets on each shoulder. She is standing on a small pedestal under a canopy, supported by slender columns, the pediment and finials frosted ; the pediment is painted a light blue, the back of the niche a bright red. Below are five small compartments; the centre contains the Crucifixion, with a female figure on each side (probably the Virgin and Mary Magdalen); the others are blank. On the north side, in another small compartment, is a monk kneeling and praying ; and from him is an inscription in white letters, in a diagonal direction, in two lines: Me quem culpa gravis premit erige virgo suavis / me michi placatum Xre deleas qu(e) reatum. I have closely examined the above painting, and find the large figure exactly corresponding with those on the shrine and tomb of Sebert, King of the East Saxons, on the south side of the high altar in Westminster Abbey, and disclosed in the summer of 1775, from which Mr. Basire took accurate copies (Engraved in Vetusta monumenta, vol. II. Edit.), and I have seen them several times, and have not the least doubt but it is the work of the same artist which Sir Joseph Ayloff ascribes to Cevallini, who flourished in the reign of Henry III. The Rev. Dr. Milner of Winchester has informed me that St. Lawrence and St. Faith are both represented with the same symbols, and that he is certain the figure before described is St. Faith. In a church in Northamptonshire I saw, in the centre of a cross to which a man and his wife were kneeling and praying, a female figure with a nimbus, and the same instrument in ber hand, and this inscription : S'c'a Fides. Yours, &c. Jacob Schnebbelie, Mr."--Schnebbelie, loc. cit.