ds the end of the seventeenth century, and in the reign of Queen
Anne, there was some little discussion, in which Bishop Beveridge and
others took part[911], as to the propriety of retaining or renovating
chancel screens. In mediaeval times, these 'cancelli,' from which the
chancel took its name, had been universal; and a few had been put up
under the Stuart sovereigns, notwithstanding the offence with which
they were regarded by those who looked upon them as one of 'the hundred
points of popery.'

We find Archbishop Secker expressing his regret, not without cause, that
chancels were not, as a rule, kept in much better order than other parts
of the building. Incumbents were by no means so careful as they should
be, and lay impropriators, whether private or collegiate, were generally
strangely neglectful. 'It is indispensably requisite,' he added, 'to
preserve them not only standing and safe, but clean, neat, decent,
agreeable; and it is highly fit to go further, and superadd, not a light
and trivial finery, but such degrees of proper dignity and grandeur as
we are able, consistently with other real obligations[912].'

The condition and decoration of the Lord's Table differed widely,
especially in the earlier years of the period, in accordance with
varieties of opinion and feeling in clergymen and in their
congregations. For the most part it was insignificantly and meanly
furnished, and hemmed closely in by the Communion rails. At the
beginning of the century, it would appear that in the London churches a
great deal of care and cost had been lately expended on 'altar-pieces.'
In one church after another, Paterson records the attraction of a
'fine'--a 'beautiful'--a 'stately'--a 'costly' altar-piece[913]. Many of
these, however, would by no means approve themselves to a more
cultivated taste than that which then prevailed. Instead of the Greek
marbles and rich baldachino which Wren had intended for the east end of
St. Paul's, the authorities substituted imitation marble, and fluted
pilasters painted with ultramarine and veined with gold[914]. The Vicar
of Leeds, writing to Ralph Thoresby in 1723, tells him that a pleasing
surprise awaits his return, 'Our altar-piece is further adorned, since
you went, with three flower-pots upon three pedestals upon the wainscot,
gilt, and a hovering dove upon the middle one; three cherubs over the
middle panel, the middle one gilt, a piece of open carved work beneath,
going down towards