Your correspondent "R.O." will find two pictures of Charles I. of
the same allegorical character as that described by him in his note
(_antè_, p. 137.), one on the wall of the stairs leading to the
north gallery of the church of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, and the
other in the hall of the law courts in Guildhall Yard. I know
nothing of the history of the first-mentioned picture; the latter,
until within a few years, hung on the wall, above the {185} gallery,
in the church of St. Olave, Jewry, when, upon the church undergoing
repair, it was taken down, and, by the parishioners, presented to
the corporation of London, who placed it in its present position. In
the church of St. Olave there were two other pictures hung in the
gallery, one representing the tomb of Queen Elizabeth, copied from
the original at Westminster, the other of Time on the Wing,
inscribed with various texts from Scripture. Both these pictures
were presented at the same time with the picture of Charles I. to
the corporation, and are now in the hall in Guildhall Yard. The
representation of Queen Elizabeth's tomb is to be met with, I
believe, in some other of the London churches. The picture in
Bishopsgate Church is fully described in the 1st vol. of Malcolm's
_Londinium Redivivum_, p. 243., and the St. Olave's pictures are
mentioned in the 4th vol. of the same work, p. 563. Malcolm states
he was not able to find any account of the Bishopsgate painting in
the parish books. Hitherto I have not been able to discover anything
connected with the history of the St. Olave's pictures, which, as
the old church was destroyed in the great fire of 1666, were
doubtless placed there subsequently to that year. I shall be glad if
any of your readers can throw any light as to the time when, and the
circumstances under which, such pictures as I have mentioned,
referring to Queen Elizabeth and Charles I., were placed in our
churches.