Chapter IX: In the Heart of the City.

The labyrinthine but most busy streets which form the centre of the City of London to the south of the Royal Exchange are filled with objects of interest, though of minor interest, amid which it will be difficult to thread our way, and impossible to keep up any continuous connection of associations. The houses, which have looked down upon so many generations of toilers, are often curious in themselves. The City churches for the most part are dying a slow death; their congregations have ebbed and will never flow back. Very few are worth visiting for their own sakes, yet almost every one contains some tomb or other fragment which gives it a historic interest. Dickens vividly describes their general aspect and the kind of thoughts which are awakened by attending a service in one of these queer old churches.

"There is a pale heap of books in the corner of every pew, and while the organ, which is hoarse and sleepy, plays in such a fashion that I can hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of the music, I look at the books, which are mostly bound in faded baize and stuff. They belonged, in 1754 , to the Dowgate family. And who were they? Jane Comport must have married young Dowgate, and come into the family that way. Young Dowgate was courting Jane Comport when 322 he gave her her prayer-book, and recorded the presentation in the fly leaf. If Jane were fond of young Dowgate, why did she die and leave the book here? Perhaps at the rickety altar, and before the damp Commandments, she, Comport, had taken him, Dowgate, in a flush of youthful hope and joy, and perhaps it had not turned out in the long run as great a success as was expected. " " The opening of the service recalls my wandering thoughts. I then find to my astonishment that I have been, and still am, taking a strong kind of invisible snuff up my nose, into my eyes, and down my throat. I wink, sneeze, and cough. The clerk sneezes; the clergyman winks; the unseen organist sneezes and coughs (and probably winks); all our little party wink, sneeze, and cough. The snuff seems to be made of the decay of matting, wood, cloth, stone, iron, earth, and something else. Is the something else the decay of dead citizens in the vaults below? As sure as death it is! Not only in the cold damp February day, do we cough and sneeze dead citizens, all through the service, but dead citizens have got into the very bellows of the organ and half choked the same. We stamp our feet to warm them, and dead citizens arise in heavy clouds. Dead citizens stick upon the walls, and lie pulverised on the sounding-board over the clergyman's head, and when a gust of air comes, tumble down upon him." [] "In the churches about Mark Lane there was a dry whiff of wheat; and I accidentally struck an airy sample of barley out of an aged hassock in one of them. From Rood Lane to Tower Street, and thereabouts, there was sometimes a subtle flavour of wine; sometimes of tea. One church, near Mincing Lane, smelt like a druggist's drawer. Behind the Monument, the service had a flavour of damaged oranges, which, a little farther down the river, tempered into herrings, and gradually turned into a cosmopolitan blast of fish. In one church, the exact counterpart of the church in the Rake's Progress, where the hero is being married to the horrible old lady, there was no speciality of atmosphere, until the organ shook a perfume of hides all over us from some adjacent warehouse. " " The dark vestries and registries into which I have peeped, and the little hemmed in churchyards that have echoed to my feet, have left impressions on my memory as distinct and quaint as any it has in that way received. In all those dusty registers that the worms are eating, there is not a line but made some hearts leap, or some tears flow, in their day. Still and dry now, still and dry and the old tree at the window, with no room for its branches, has seen them all out. So with the tomb of the Master of the old Company, on which it drips. His 323 son restored it and died, his daughter restored it and died, and then he had been remembered long enough, and the tree took possession of him, and his name cracked out." --The Uncommercial Traveller.

The great new street which leads out of St. Paul's Churchyard to the S.W. is Cannon Street , originally Candlewick Street, the head-quarters of the wax-chandlers who flourished by Roman Catholicism. In the formation of the new street, many old buildings were destroyed, the most interesting being Gerard's (Gisor's?) Hall in Basing Lane, with a noble crypt probably built by Sir John Gisors, Mayor in 1245 : in which a gigantic firpole was shown as the staff of Gerard the Giant. The figure of the giant, which adorned the outside of the house, is now in the museum of the Guildhall. Distaff Lane , near the entrance of Cannon Street on the right, leads to Old Fish Street . Here are the (church of St. Nicholas, Cole Abbey, the first church finished by Wren after the Fire, and the Church of St. Mary Magdalen , another of Wren's works, rather good in its proportions. In the vestibule is a brass rescued from the old church, with the date 1558 , and the inscription- In God the Lord put all your trust,
Repent your former wicked daies.
Elizabeth, our queen most just,
Bless her, O Lord, in all her waies.
So, Lord, increase good counsellours
And preachers of His holy word;
Mislike of all papists desires-
Oh Lord, cut them off with thy sword.
How small soever the gift shall bee,
Thank God for him who gave it thee:
XII. penie loaves to XII. poor foulkes
Give, every Sabbath day for aye.
As a monument saved from a church burnt in the Great Fire this deserves notice. 324

Knightrider Street, which opens hence to the west, is supposed to derive its name from the processions of knights riding from Tower Royal to tournaments in Smithfield. No. 5 was the house of the great physician Linacre, bequeathed by him to the College of Physicians.

Cannon Street is now crossed by Bread Street , so called from the market in which bakers of Bromley and Stratford-le-Bow were forced to sell their bread before the reign of Edward I., being forbidden to sell it in their houses. On the right is St. Mildred's, Bread Street , one of Wren's worst rebuildings, dedicated to a Saxon princess who was abbess of Minster. It is wretched externally, but has an elegantly supported dome. The pulpit is attributed to Grinling Gibbons. An interesting monument commemorates Sir Nicholas Crisp, the indefatigable agent of Charles I., who at one time would wait for information at the water's edge dressed as a porter, with a basket of fish on his head, and at another would disguise himself as a butterwoman and carry his news out of London mounted between two panniers. His epitaph tells how Sir Nicholas Crisp, anciently inhabitant in this parish and a great benefactor to it, was the old faithful servant to King Charles I. and King Charles II., for whom he suffered very much, and lost above £ 100,000 in their service, but this was repaid in some measure by King Charles II.

In Bread Street, at the sign of the Spread Eagle, the armorial ensign of his family, John Milton was born, December 9, 1608 , being the son of a scrivener. His birthplace was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 , before the publication of Paradise Lost. The poet was baptised in the old Church of All Hallows at the corner of Bread 325 Street and Watling Street. It was destroyed in the Fire, but rebuilt by Wren. The second church was condemned to destruction in 1877 , the same year which witnessed the demolition of the house in Petty France which was the last remaining of Milton's many London homes. In the register of All Hallows his baptism is recorded, and he was commemorated on the church wall towards Watling Street in the inscription, which city waggoners often lingered to decipher- Three poets, in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn.
The first in loftiness of thought surpast,
The next in majesty--in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go:
To make a third, she joined the former two.Dryden.

John Milton was born in Bread Street on Friday the 9th day of December, 1608 , And was baptised in the parish church of Allhallows, Bread Street, on Tuesday the 20th day of December, 1608 .

In the old church was buried Alderman Richard Reed, who refused to pay his contribution to the Northern Wars of Henry VIII. and was sent down to serve as a soldier, at his own cost, that, as he could not find it in his heart to disburse a little quantity of his substance, he might do some service for his country with his body, whereby he might be somewhat instructed of the difference between the sitting quietly in his house and the travail and danger which others daily do sustain, whereby he hath hitherto been maintained in the same. He was taken prisoner by the Scotch and obliged to purchase his ransom for a large 326 sum. In the vestry of the later church was a monumental tablet inscribed In memory of the Rev. W. Lawrence Saunders, M.A., Rector of All Hallows, who, for sermons here preached in defence of the doctrines of the Reformation of the Church of England from the corruptions of the Church of Rome, suffered martyrdom in ye third of Queen Mary, being burned at Coventry, February ye 8th, 1555 . John Howe, the eminent nonconformist divine, author of The Living Temple, The Blessedness of the Righteous, &c., was buried here in 1075 . Some of the fine oak carving from All Hallows is preserved at St. Mary-le-Bow.

Watting Street-so called from the Saxon word Atheling, noble-is part of the old Roman road from London to Dover. As we look down it we see one of the most picturesque views in the City. The tower on the right belongs to Wren's restoration of the Church of St. Augustine, formerly called Ecclesia Sancti Augustini ad Portam from its position at the south-west gate of the precincts of St. Paul's, one of the six gates by which the old cathedral was approached. Here, says Strype, the fraternity met on the eve of St. Austin, and in the morning at High Mass, when every brother offered a penny and was ready afterwards either to eat or to revel as the master and wardens directed. Beyond rises the great dome, huge and dusky, with here and there a space on its vast form where the original whiteness of the marble comes out like a streak of moonshine amid the blackness with which time has made it grander than it was in its newness. Hawthorne. In Watling Street is the central station of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.

The Church of St. Mary Aldermary or St. Mary the Elder, 327 in Bow Lane (right), which crosses Watling Street to the east, occupies the site of the first church dedicated to the Virgin in the City. The present building (restored 1876 -77) is Gothic (Perpendicular) in spite of its being one of Wren's restorations (in 1681 ), for he was forced by a bequest of £ 5,000 in aid of the rebuilding to make the new church a copy of its predecessor, which had been built c. 1510 by Sir Henry Keeble, a grocer, Lord Mayor in 1510 , called, in his epitaph in the old building- A famous worthy wight
Which did this Aldermary Church
Erect and set upright.
The monuments from St. Antholin's have been placed in the tower. Stow says that Richard Chawcer, Vintner, gave to this church his tenement and tavern, with the appurtenances in the Royal Street, the corner of Kirion Lane, and was there buried, 1348 : this was the father of Geoffrey Chaucer, the poet.

St. Pancras Lane, on the left of Watling Street, leads to a quiet little churchyard, where, an inscription says, Before ye dreadful fire anno 1666 , stood ye church of St. Benet, Sherehog

Tower Royal (on the left of Cannon Street) now marks the site of an old Royal Palace, inhabited by King Stephen and restored by Queen Philippa, after which it was known as the Queen's Wardrobe. It was here that the Fair Maid of Kent, widow of the Black Prince, was living during the Wat Tyler invasion, when the rebels terrified her by breaking in, and piercing her bed with their swords, but--

328

King Richard, having in Smithfield overcome and dispersed the rebels, he, his lords, and all his company entered the City of London with great joy, and went to the lady princess his mother, who was then lodged in the Tower Royal, called the Queen's Wardrobe, where she had remained three days and two nights right sore abashed. But when she saw the king her son she was greatly rejoiced, and said, Ah! son, what great sorrow have I suffered for you this day! The king answered and said, Certainly, madam, I know it well, but now rejoice, and thank God, for I have this day recovered mine heritage, and the realm of England, which I had near-hand lost. Stow.

Riley derives the name of Tower Royal from a street built in the thirteenth century by merchants of the Vintry, who imported wine from the town of La Reole near Bordeaux. The great house of Tower Royal was granted to the first Duke of Norfolk- Jockey of Norfolk --by Richard III. It afterwards became a stable for the king's horses and was gradually destroyed.

On the left, between the end of Watling Street and Budge Row, so called from sellers of Budge (lamb-skin) fur, was St. Antholin's or St. Anthony's, one of Wren's churches, destroyed by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in 1876 , and its site built over. Great intercession was vainly made for the preservation of the tower, built 1685 -88, which was a noble work of the great City architect, and might have been the greatest ornament to the new street and utilised as a clock-tower. It only occupied forty-four square yards and in no way interfered with the traffic, but the impossibility of doing without the rent of this space in the most richly endowed square mile of the whole territory of the Church was considered a sufficient excuse for its destruction! The Commissioners from the Church of Scotland were lodged close by St. Antholin's, with a gallery opening from their house into the church, where their own chaplains preached, 329 of whom Alexander Henderson was the chief. To hear these sermons, says Clarendon, there was so great a conflux and resort by the citizens, out of humour and faction, by others of all qualities, part of curiosity, by some that they might the better justify the contempt they had of them, that from the first appearance of day in the morning of every Sunday to the shutting in of the light the church was never empty; they (especially the women) who had the happiness to get into the church in the morning (they who could not hung upon or about the windows without, to be auditors or spectators) keeping the places till the afternoon exercises were finished. Clarendon's Hist. of the Rebellion, ed. 1820 , i. 33r. S. Antholine's, says Dugdale (from its Morning Lectures ), was the grand nursery whence most of the Seditious Preachers were after sent abroad throughout all England to poyson the people with their anti-monarchical principles. Dugdale's Troubles in England, fol. 1681 , p. 37. The Puritanical piety of St. Antholin's is much ridiculed by contemporary poets.

Facing Cannon Street, opposite the Railway Station, is the Church of St. Swithin, rebuilt by Wren, in the Roman Renaissance style, but remodelled as a mongrel Gothic church in 1869 . In the old church Dryden had been married to Lady Elizabeth Howard, December 1, 1663 .

Built into this church, facing the Station, is the famous London Stone, now encased in masonry and only visible through a circular opening with an iron grille. It is supposed by Camden to have been a Roman Milliarium--the central terminus whence all the great Roman roads radiated over England, and which answered to the Golden 330 Milestone in the Forum at Rome. It is probably now a mere fragment of its former self. Stow says, speaking of Walbrook-

On the south side of this high street, neere unto the channell, is pitched upright a great stone, called London Stone, fixed in the ground very deep, fastened with bars of iron, and otherwise so stronglie set, that if cartes do runne against it through negligence, the wheeles [Illustration]be broken, and the stone itselfe unshaken. The cause why this stone was there set, the verie time when, or other memory hereof, is there none; but that the same hath long continued there, is manifest, namely since, or rather before the time of the Conquest. For in the end of a fayre written Gospell booke, given to Christes Church in Canterburie, by Ethelstane, King of the West Saxons, I find noted of lands or rents in London, belonging to the said Church, whereof one parcel is described to lye near unto London Stone. Of later time we read that, in the year of Christ 135, the 1st of King Stephen, a fire 331 which began in the house of one Ailwarde, neare unto London Stone, consumed all east to Ealdgate .... and those be the eldest notes that I read thereof. London Stone seems to have been looked upon as a kind of palladium in London, as the Coronation Stone was in Scotland. As such, the adventurous Kentish rebel, Jack Cade, seems to have regarded it, for when, in 1450 , in the time of Henry VI., he entered London with royal honours, calling himself John Mortimer, it was straight to London Stone that he rode, and, striking upon it with his sword, cried, Now is Mortimer lord of the City. Shakspeare makes him say-

Now is Mortimer lord of this city. And here, sitting upon London Stone, I charge and command that the conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year of our reign. And now henceforward it shall be treason for any that calls me Lord Mortimer. Hen. I. pt. ii. Act iv. sc. 6.

Dryden alludes to this in his fable of the Cock and the Fox -- The bees in arms
Drive headlong from the waxen cells in swarms.
Jack Straw at London Stone, with all his rout,
Struck not the city with so loud a shout.

The brick church of St. Mary Abchurch (from Up-church, being on rising ground), finished 1689 , is externally one of Wren's ugliest rebuildings, but internally of peculiar and beautiful design. Its cupola, painted by Sir James Thornhill is supported by eight arches and pendentives. The altar-piece is an exquisite work of Gibbons, and the fontcover a fine piece of Renaissance work. Here are monuments to Sir Patience Ward, the Lord Mayor ( 1696 ) under whom the Monument was built (of whom the Merchant 332 Tailors' Company have a fine portrait); Edward Sherwood, 1690 ; and Alderman Perchard. In Crooked Lane, at the end of Cannon Street on the right, was St. Michael's Church (now destroyed), where Sir William Walworth, who slew Wat Tyler, was buried, with the epitaph-- Here under lyeth a mon of fame,
William Walworth called by name.
Fishmonger he was in lyff time here,
And twise Lord Maior, as in bookes appere;
Who with courage stout and manly myght
Slew Jack Straw in Kyng Richard's syght.
For which act done and trew content,
The kyng made him knyght incontinent,
And gave hym armes, as here you see,
To declare his fact and chivalrie.
He left this lyff the yere of our God,
Thirteen hundred fourscore and three odd.

Cannon Street falls into King William Street opposite the statue of William IV. Behind the junction of King William Street and Grace Church Street is the Church of St. Clement, Eastcheap , one of Wren's restorations. In the old church Bishop Pearson (ob. 1686 ) was rector.. His exposition of the Creed is dedicated to the right worshipful and well-beloved, the parishioners of St. Clement's Eastcheap.

The name of this church is now the only relic of the street of Eastcheap, swallowed up in Cannon Street. It was once the especial mart of the Butchers, afterwards removed to Leadenhall. Then I hyed me into Est-Chepe,
One cryes rybbs of befe, and many a pye;
Pewter pottes they clattered on a heape,
But for lacke of money I myght not spede
/quote> John Lydgate's London Lyckpenny. 333 Here was the famous tavern of the Boar's Head, immortalised by Shakspeare, burnt in the Fire, rebuilt, and finally destroyed in 1831 : William IV.'s statue marks its site. Washington Irving describes his vain search for the tavern, but narrates that he saw at the Mason's Arms, in Mile Lane, a snuff-box presented to the Vestry Meetings at the Boar's Head Tavern in 1767 , with a representation of the tavern on the lid, and a goblet from the tavern, which he fondly believed was the parcel-gilt goblet on which Falstaff made his loving but faithless vow to Dame Quickly.

Grace Church Street takes its name.from the demolished church of St. Benet, called Grass Church from the adjoining herb-market. The name was formerly written Gracious Street. In White Hart Court, opening from this street, was the Quakers' Meeting House, in which George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, preached two days before his death, and in the house of Henry Goldney in the same court he died, in 1690 .

Leaving; the Monument for the present, we must now make an inner circle, and turn up the broad new King William Street nearly as far as the Mansion House.

Here, on the right, in the junction of King William Street and Lombard Street, is the grotesque Church of St. Mary Woolnoth The origin of this name is unknown. designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor, the domestic Clerk of Sir Christopher Wren, in 1716 . The niches and windows at the sides are tolerably bold imitations of fifteenth century Italian work. The interior is quadrangular, with odd wooden decorations against the walls, and gaudily painted pillars. Over the entrance hang the helmet, 334 gloves, sword, spurs, and coat of Sir Martin Bowes, Lord Mayor in 1545 , whose portrait is at the Goldsmiths' Hall. Against the north wall is a monument to John Newton, the friend of Cowper, author of the Cardiphonia and Omicron and of many of the Olney Hymns. He was for sixteen years Rector of Olney, and for twenty-eight years rector of this parish, where he died December 21, 1807 . The tablet is inscribed with an epitaph from his own pen--

John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy.

I remember, when a lad of about fifteen, being taken by my uncle to hear the well-known Mr. Newton (the friend of Cowper the poet) preach his wife's funeral sermon in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, in Lombard Street. Newton was then well stricken in years, with a tremulous voice, and in the costume of the full-bottomed wig of the day. He had, and always had, the entire possession of the ear of his congregation. He spoke at first feebly and leisurely, but as he warmed, his ideas and his periods seemed mutually to enlarge: the tears trickled down his cheeks, and his action and expression were at times quite out of the ordinary course of things. It was as the mens agitans molem et magno se corpore miscens. In fact the preacher was one with his discourse. To this day I have not forgotten his text, Hab. iii. 17, 18: Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Newton always preached extemporaneous. -Dibdin's Reminiscences of a Literary Life.

Let us now turn down. Lombard Street -the street of Bankers, which derived its name from the Italian merchants who frequented it before the reign of Edward II. Jane Shore, the beloved of Edward IV., was the wife of a 335 goldsmith in this street; Guy, the founder of Guy's Hospital, was a bookseller here; and here, where his father was a linen-draper, the poet Pope was born in 1688 amongst the merchants and money-makers. At No. 68 was Sir Thomas Gresham's banking office and goldsmith's shop, once surmounted by a huge gilt grasshopper. On the right, Nicholas Lane leads by the churchyard of St. Nicholas Acon, never rebuilt after the Great Fire. On the left is the Church of St. Edmund the English King and Martyr, which now also serves for the parishes of St. Benet, Grace Church, and St. Leonard, Eastcheap. It is one of Wren's restorations. In the old church on this site was buried John Shute ( 1563 ), who published one of the first English architectural works-The First and Chief Groundes of Architecture. Opposite this church a court till lately led to a Quakers' Meeting House, where Penn and Fox frequently preached. Birchin Lane (left) was formerly Burchover Lane, from its builder, In Clement's Lane (right) the quaint sign of The Three Foxes existed till the house it adorned (No. 6) was let to three lawyers who felt it personal and had it plastered over.

On the left of Lombard Street is another poor work of Wren, the Church of Allhallows, Lombard Street . The church is of Saxon foundation and is mentioned in records of 1653 . It is now called the Invisible Church, so completely is it concealed by houses, and this is no loss. In the interior is some good wood-carving.

From Lombard Street, Fenchurch Street leads to Aldgate, taking its name from the fenny ground caused by the overflowings of the Lang Bourne, a clear brook of sweet water which ran down Fen Church Street and Lombard Street as 336 far as St. Mary Woolnoth, where it broke into several small rills which flowed southward to the Thames. Many of the buildings in this street bear a date immediately after the Great Fire, in which it was consumed. Pepys saw Fanchurch Street, Gracious Street, and Lombard Street all in dust. At the corner of Lime Street (so called from the lime-burners--the neighbouring Coleman Street and Seacoal Lane having the same origin) is the Church of St. Dionis Backchurch (dedicated to the Athenian, who is called St. Denys in France), rebuilt by Wren after the Fire. Its second name indicates its position. St. Gabriel (of which no trace remains), standing close by, was called Forechurch, from its position in the centre of Fenchurch Street. St. Dionis is now ( 1877 ) condemned. It contains the monument of Sir Arthur Ingram, 1681 , from whom Ingram Court, which we have just passed on the left, derives its name; and in the vestry are preserved four specimens of the earliest type of fire-engines-large syringes, three feet long, fastened by straps round the body of the man who works them. The Pewterers' Hall in Lime Street (No. 15) contains a curious portrait of William Smallwood, Master of the Company in the time of Henry VII.

On the right of Fenchurch Street, Philpot Lane records its ownership by Sir John Philpot, grocer and mayor under Richard II. Hard by, in Rood Lane , the next turn on the right, is the Church of St, Margaret Pattens, rebuilt by Wren, and so named because, of old, pattens were there usually made and sold. Stow. The church contains a good deal of handsome carving. Dr. Thomas Birch (ob 1766 ), author of the General Dictionary, Memoirs of 337 the Reign of Elizabeth, &c., was rector of this church and was buried in the chancel.

Mincing Lane (right) is named from houses which belonged to the Minchuns or nuns of St. Helen's. Near the entrance of the lane, on the left, an iron gate is the entrance to the Hall of the Clothworkers' Company, whose badge is a ram. About one hundred and ten poor men and the same number of women are clothed throughout by this Company, and receive a guinea each after attending a service at one of the neighbouring churches on the 16th of May . The Hall is very handsome, with stained windows and curious gilt statues of James I. and Charles I. saved from the Great Fire. The cash-books of the Company exist, brought forward, from 1480 . The garden of the Company is formed by the Churchyard of All Hallows Staining, in which most of the tombs have been ruthlessly buried under the shrubs and gravel. Elizabeth is said to have attended a thanksgiving service here on the day of her deliverance from the Tower, before dining at the Queen's Head. The church is demolished, and the churchyard ruined by gravel and silly rockwork, but the fine old tower, which escaped the Fire, is retained. All Hallows Staining claims to be the earliest stone church in the City.

To this churchyard has been removed a fragment of the beautiful Crypt of the Hermitage of St. James in the Wall, which was pulled down in 1874 , when the chapel built above it by William Lambe the Clothworker ( 1495 - 1580 ) was removed from Cripplegate to Islington. It has low zig-zag Roman arches.

Returning to Fenchurch Street, on the left is the Elephant Tavern, rebuilt in 1826 , on the site of a tavern which was 338 of great interest, because, being a massive house built of solid stone, it alone resisted the Great Fire, and the flames, which tore swiftly through the timber buildings of this part of London; left it standing smoke-begrimed and flame-blackened, but sufficiently uninjured to give a shelter to numbers of the homeless inhabitants of the 13,200 houses [Illustration] which were swept away. William Hogart, who afterwards changed his name to Hogarth, came to lodge in this house, in 1697 , soon after the death of his father, who kept a small school in the Old Bailey, and here for a long time he earned a hand-to-mouth subsistence by selling his engravings on copper. I remember the time, he says, when I have gone moping into the City with scarce a shilling, but 339 as soon as I have obtained two guineas for a plate, I have returned home, put on my sword, and sallied forth again with all the confidence of a man with thousands in his pockets. Sometimes, however, the plates accumulated unsold till the artist was glad to sell them at half-a-crown the pound to Mr. Bowles of the Black Horse at Cornhill. It was in 1727 , while he was living here, that Hogarth made a tapestry design for Morris the upholsterer, for which he was refused payment, and vainly sued for it in the Courts. It is believed that this loss induced him to run so far into debt with his landlord that he consented to wipe off the score with his brush by caricaturing on the wall of the Elephant taproom the parochial authorities who had insulted his landlord by removing the scene of their annual orgie to a tavern (Henry the Eighth's Head) opposite, and insulted himself by omitting to send his accustomed invitation. The famous picture of Modern Midnight Conversation was the result, in which every phase of riotry and intoxication was represented,Orator Henley, the famous but eccentric and profligate preacher, who was the orator of brazen face and lungs of Pope's Dunciad, was introduced here. and which delighted the landlord by attracting half London to his house. The host of the Elephant was only too glad to obliterate a second score for the picture of the Hudson's Bay Company Porters going to dinner, in which Fenchurch Street, as it then was, was represented; and to these greater pictures the paintings of Harlequin and Pierrot, and of Harlow Bush Fair, were afterwards added, so that the Elephant became a little gallery of the best works of Hogarth.See The Builder, Sept. ii, 1875 .

The next house is the Hall of the Ironmongers' Company. incorporated by a charter of Edward IV. At the foot of 340 their staircase is an ancient wooden statue of St. Lawrence, their patron saint, and an ostrich, the bird which digests iron. Their picturesque Hall is hung with pictures and banners, and decorated with the arms of the Masters, from those of the first Master, Capel de Cure, in 1351 . The portraits include- Izaak Walton the angler.
Sir R. Jeffreys, founder of almshouses in Whitechapel.
Thomas Belton, who, dying in 1723 , left 20,000 guineas to be applied to the redemption of Christian slaves taken by pirates. The bequest of late years has enormously increased in value, a portion of the building land purchased for £ 9,000 having been sold for £ 87,000 . In 1847 the Company got a scheme passed by which the freemen and widows of the Company participated in the bequest, as well as 800 National Schools in England and Wales.
Admiral Lord Hood, a noble portrait by Gainsborough, presented on his admission to the Company.
Lord Exmouth, by Sir W. Beechey.

No. 53 on the opposite side of Fenchurch Street was the Queen's Head Tavern, pulled down in 1876 . In it were preserved the metal dish and cover used by the Princess Elizabeth when she dined here on pork and peas upon her release from the Tower in 1554 . The modern building erected on the site of the old tavern bears a commemorative statue of Elizabeth. On the left, in Church Row, is the truly hideous Church of St. Catherine Coleman, occupying the site of an ancient garden called Coleman Haw.

Mark Lane (right) is one of the busiest streets in London. It was originally Mart Lane from the privilege of fair accorded by Edward I. to Sir Thomas Ross of Hamlake, whose manor of Blanch Appleton became corrupted into Blind Chapel Court. Edinburgh Review, No. 267 In the reign of Edward IV. 341 basket-makers, vine-dressers, and other foreigners were permitted to have shops in the manor of Blanch Appleton and nowhere else in the City.

Descending Mark Lane, we find, on the left, Hart Street , where (four doors from Mark Lane) stood the richly ornamented timber house called Whittington's Palace, where, with the same generosity shown by the Fuggers at Augsburg, the princely Lord Mayor burnt the royal bond for a debt of £ 60,000 , when Henry V. and his queen came to dine with him. Never had king such a subject, Henry is said to have exclaimed, when Whittington replied, Surely, sire, never had subject such a king.

The interesting Church of St. Olave, Hart Street , is dedicated to a Norwegian who came to England and fought on behalf of Ethelred II. against the Danes.--Being afterwards himself made king of Norway, he became a Christian, which irritated his subjects, who invited Canute to supplant him, by whom he was defeated and slain in 1028 . Several churches were dedicated to him in England and three in London, on account of the assistance he had given to the Saxons against the Danes. This churchThe keys are to be found near-at 10, Gould Square, Crutched Friars, escaped the Great Fire, and is full of interest. It is the our owne church so frequently mentioned in his Diary by Samuel Pepys, whose parish church it was, and who is buried here ( 1703 ) with his wife and his brother Tom ( 1664 ) just under my mother's pew. The interior is highly picturesque, and its monuments and relics of old iron-work have been respected in its restoration, though the usual follies of shiny tiles are introduced. Making the round of the building from the left, we see-

342

The Tomb of Sir Andrew Riccard, Turkey merchant and Chairman of the East India Company, 1672

.

Monument to Sir John Radcliffe, son of Robert, Earl of Sussex, 1568 .

Half-figure of Peter Turner, 1614 , son of the herbalist.

Inscription to William Turner, author of the first English Herbal, 1568 . The fore-mentioned William Turner, father of Peter, was an antient gospeller, contemporary, fellow-collegian, and friend to Bishop Ridley, the martyr. He was doctor of physic in King Edward the Sixth's days, and domestic physician to the Duke of Somerset, Protector to that king; he was also a divine and preacher, and wrote several books against the errors of Rome; and was preferred by King Edward to be Dean of Wells; and, being an exile under Queen Mary the First, returned home upon her death, and enjoyed his deanery again. He was the first that, by great labour and travel into Germany, Italy, and other foreign parts, put forth an Herbal in English, anno 1568 , the groundwork of Gerard's Herbal, and then lived in Crutched Friars, from which he dated his epistle dedicatory of that book to the queen. -Stow. Dr. Turner's Book of Herbs will always grow green, and never wither as long as Dioscorides is held in mind by us mortal wights. -Dr. Bulleyn.

Kneeling Effigy of the Florentine merchant, Pietro Capponi, 1582 .

Two curious Monuments (delightful in colour) of Andrew Bayninge, 1610 , and Paul Bayninge, 1616 , aldermen, with an epitaph which tells how- The happy summe and end of their affaires,
Provided well both for their soules and heires.
Above the tombs of these brothers the Bust of the foolish beauty, with whose little affectations and jealousies we are so singularly well acquainted--the Wife of Samuel Pepys.

(Right of altar) The admirable Figure, beautiful in profile, of Dame Anne Radcliffe, 1585 .

The Monument of Sir John Mennys, 1671 , the witty Comptroller of the Navy under Charles II., who wrote some of the best poems in the Musarum Deliciae. This is the Sir John Minnes mentioned in Pepys's Diary of June 6, 1666 , when he says, To our church, it being the common Fast-day, and it was just before sermon; but, Lord! how all the people in the church did stare upon me, to see me whisper the news of the victory over the Dutch to Sir John Minnes and my Lady Pen! Anon I saw people stirring and whispering below; and by and 343 by comes up the sexton from my Lady Ford, to tell me the news which I had brought, being now sent into the church by Sir W. Batten, in writing, and passed from pew to pew. [Illustration]

(South Aisle) The curious Brass, much mutilated, of Sir Richard Haddon, Lord Mayor, and his family.

The Brass of John Orgone and his wife. Ellyne, 1584 , with the inscription- As I was, so be ye;
As I am, you shall be,
That I gave, that I have;
That I spent, that I had;
Thus I ende all my coste,
That I lefte, that I loste.

Admirable Jacobian Monument of Sir J. Deane, 1608 , with his wives and children.

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Devereux, Earl of Essex, the Parliamentary general, was baptised in this church, 1591 , by Lancelot Andrews, afterwards Bishop of Winchester. Its churchyard was one of those used for burial during the Plague, a fact commemorated in the skulls over its picturesque and grimy gateway, which is surmounted by a curious chevaux de frise of ancient ironwork. Pepys, writing on January 30, 1665 -6, says-

Home, finding the town keeping the day solemnly, it being the day of the king's murther; and they being at church, I presently went into the church. This is the first time I have been in the church since I left London for the Plague; and it frightened me indeed to go through the church, more than I thought it could have done, to see so many graves lie so high upon the churchyard where people have been buried of the Plague. I was much troubled at it, and do not think to go through it again a good while.

The gateway looks out upon Seething Lane , where Pepys lived during the last nine years of his life, being here during the Great Fire, which this street escaped. Sir Francis Walsingham and his son-in-law the Earl of Essex lived here in a house built by Sir John Allen, Lord Mayor in the time of Henry VIII.

The Convent of Crossed or Crouched Friars (Fratres Sanctae Crucis) in Hart Street, founded by Ralph Hosier and William Saberner in 1298 , has given a name to the neighbouring street of Crutched Friars . Here, in Cooper's Row, were Sir John Milbome's Almshouses (lately removed to Seven Sisters Road, Holloway), built in 1535 , in honour of God and of the Virgin, where, having strangely survived Puritan iconoclasm, a relief of the Assumption of the Virgin remained to the last over the entrance gate. Near this was an early Northumberland House, inhabited by the second Earl of Northumberland, who was slain at the Battle of St. 345 Alban's, and his son the third Earl, who fell, sword in hand, at the Battle of Towton. In Crutched Friars are the vast buildings of the East India Docks Indigo Warehouse.

Returning to Fenchurch Street, we pass, on the left, Billiter Lane , formerly Bell-yeter Lane, from the bellfounders, though Stow says it was formerly Belzettars Lane, so called of the first owner and builder thereof. Fenchurch Street leads into Aldgate High Street, where Aldgate Pump occupies the site of a famous well dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel. Close by stood a little Chapel of St. Michael, which belonged to the neighbouring monastery of the Holy Trinity, where wayfarers to the eastern counties sought the divine protection for their journey. The chapel is destroyed, but its beautiful Crypt still exists beneath the pavement of Aldgate, though the approaches to it have been recently blocked up.

Aldgate was one of the great gates of the City, and the chief outlet to the eastern counties from the time of the Romans to its destruction in 1760 . Its antiquity is shown in the name of Aeld or Old gate. It was rebuilt in the reign of John by the Barons, with money robbed from the coffers of the monks and stone taken from the houses of the Jews, for they feared that others might not experience more difficulty than they had done themselves, in entering the City on this side. The dwelling-house above the gate was leased by the corporation in 1374 (48 Edward III.) to the poet Chaucer for life, though he was not allowed to underlet any portion of the building to others. In 1471 Aldgate was attacked by Thomas Nevill, the Bastard of Falconbergh, who succeeded in effecting an entrance, but, the portcullis being let down, was surrounded and slain with 346 his men. In 1553 Aldgate was hung from the top to the bottom with streamers to welcome Mary I., as she entered London in triumph, after the fall of the partisans of Lady Jane Grey. The gate built by the Barons was pulled down in 1606 and rebuilt in 1609 . This last Aldgate bore on its east side a gilded statue of James I. with a lion and unicorn chained at his feet, and on the west side gilded [Illustration]statues of Peace, Fortune, and Charity. It was used after the Fire for the prisoners who had been lodged in the Poultry Compter.

The name of Nightingale Lane just outside the site of Aldgate is an odd corruption of Knighten Guild Lane, commemorating the district which Stow describes as a certain portion of land on the east part of the City, left desolate and forsaken by the inhabitants, by reason of too 347 much servitude, which was given by King Edgar to thirteen knights or soldiers well-beloved, for service by them done, and was formed by them into the liberty called Knighten Guild, which still exists as Portsoken (soke of the gate) Ward.

Stow, the antiquary, lived in Aldgate, and here witnessed the death of the Bailiff of Romford, a man very well beloved, who was executed on an accusation of having taken part in a rising in the Eastern Counties. This accusation was brought by Sir Stephen, Curate of St. Andrew Undershaft, the popular agitator whose silly sermon at Paul's Cross led to the destruction of the parish Maypole. The bailiff died, protesting his entire innocence. I heard the words of the prisoner, says Stow, for he was executed upon the pavement of my door, where I kept house; and the popular indignation was so great that the Curate was forced to take flight from the City.

Duke Street , on the left, commemorates Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who married the heiress of the property on this site. On the right is Jewry Street (leading into Crutched Friars), called even in Stow's time the poor Jurie, of Jews dwelling there. But the great settlement of Jews here was in 1655 , under Cromwell, when they came to England in such numbers that there was no room for them in Old Jewry and Jewin Street.

The ugly Church of St. Botolph, Aldgate , was built by George Dance in 1744 on the site of an earlier church, for there were churches to this popular saint at four of the gates-Billingsgate, Aldersgate, Bishopsgate, and Aldgate. Retained from the older church are the curious painted bust of Robert Dow, merchant tailor, 1612 , and a figure in 348 a shroud on the tomb of Sir Nicholas and Lady Elizabeth Carew, with their son-in-law Lord Darcy of the north and their grandson Sir Arthur Darcy. Almost opposite St. Botolph's is an old house decorated with Prince of Wales's feathers, the Fleur-de-lis of France, the Thistle of Scotland, and Portcullis of Westminster.

The Three Nuns Inn (left) near St. Botolph's is mentioned in Defoe's History of the Plague. It takes its name of the nuns of the Minorite convent which gave its name to the opposite street of the Minories.

The name of Petticoat Lane (on the left) has been ludicrously changed into Middlesex Street ; it is the Hog Lane of Stow. In Gravel Lane, close by, stood, till 1844 , the Spanish Ambassador's House, where Gondomar is said to have once lived. In another house near this, which belonged to Hans Jacobsen, jeweller to James I., John Strype was born, and his name, horribly perverted, remains in Tripe Yard I The Builder, May ii, 1877 . " Petticoat Lane is essentially the old clothes district. Embracing the streets and alleys adjacent to Petticoat Lane, and including the rows of old boots and shoes on the ground, there is, perhaps, between two and three miles of old clothes. Petticoat Lane proper is long and narrow, and to look down it is to look down a vista of many-coloured garments, alike on the sides and on the ground. The effect sometimes is very striking, from the variety of hues and the constant flitting or gathering of the crowd into little groups of bargainers. Gowns of every shade and every pattern are hanging up, but none, perhaps, look either bright or white; it is a vista of dinginess, but many-coloured dinginess, as regards female attire. Dress-coats, frock-coats, greatcoats, livery and game-keepers' coats, paletots, tunics, trowsers, knee. breeches, waistcoats, capes, pilot-coats, working jackets, plaids, hats, dressing-gowns, shirts, Guernsey frocks, are all displayed. The predominant colours are black and blue, but there is every colour; the light dress of some aristocratic livery, the dull brown-green of velveteen, 349 the deep blue of a pilot jacket, the variegated figures of the shawl dressing-gown, the glossy black of the restored garments, the shine of the newly-turpentined black satin waistcoats, the scarlet and green of some flaming tartan-these things, mixed with the hues of the women's garments, spotted and striped, certainly present a scene which cannot be beheld in any other part of the greatest city in the world, nor in any other portion of the world itself. " "The ground has also its array of colours. It is covered with lines of boots and shoes, their shining black relieved here and there by the admixture of females' boots, with drab, green, plum, or lavender-coloured legs, as the upper part of the boot is always called in the trade. There is, too, an admixture of men's button-boots, with drab-cloth legs; and of a few red, yellow, and russet-coloured slippers; and of children's coloured morocco boots and shoes. Handkerchiefs, sometimes of a gaudy orange pattern, are leaped on a chair. Lace and muslin occupy small stands, or are spread on the ground. Black and drab and straw hats are hung up, or piled one upon another, and kept from falling by means of strings; while incessantly threading their way through all this intricacy is a mass of people, some of whose dresses speak of a recent purchase in this lane." --H. Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor.

Aldgate now falls into the poverty-stricken district of Whitechapel. The name of Wentworth Street (left) commemorates Thomas Wentworth, Lord Chamberlain to Edward VI. On the right of the main street is the Church of St. Mar,, which once occupied an important position, as before the time of railways most of the great roads into the eastern counties and all the coast lines on this side of London were measured from Whitechapel Church, which shared with Shoreditch Church, Hick's Hall, Tyburn Turnpike, and Hyde Park Corner the position now occupied by the great railway-termini north of the Thames. Saturday Review, Feb. 1 ?, 1877

The church was rebuilt 1876 -77, with a spire two hundred and ten feet high in the place of a hideous building of Charles I.»s time. It is one of the few churches in which, 350 as the churchyard had frequently been used for open-air preaching, an outside pulpit has been added. The original name of the church, St. Mary Matfelon, is derived from the Syriac word Matfel, meaning a woman who has recently given birth to a son. There is, in St. Alban's Abbey, a picture of the Last Supper which was painted by Sir J. Thornhill for this church, but which the Bishop of London caused to be removed as a scandal; because Kennett, Dean of St. Paul's, was therein represented as Judas Iscariot.

On the 2 st of July, 1649 , a man named Charles Brandon was buried in this churchyard-- a man out of Rosemary Lane, where he kept a rag-shop. His entry in the Burial Register is- This man was the executioner of Charles I. and a rare tract entitled, The Confession of Richard Brandon, the Hangman, upon his death-bed, concerning the beheading of his late Majesty, describes how, as his corpse was being carried to the churchyard, the people cried out, Hang the rogue! Bury him in the dung-hill while others pressed upon him, saying they would quarter him for executing the king, so that his body had to be rescued by force.See The Trial of Charles I., The Family Library, No, xxxi. Brandon was succeeded in his horrible office by Dunn, who was followed by Jack Ketch, whose name has been transmitted to his successors for one hundred and fifty years.

[From Whitechapel the long broad thoroughfare of the Commercial Road leads (right) to Stepney-the Stibbenhidde or Stebenheth of early deeds: the affix indicating the hid or haeredium of a Saxon freeman. We must turn here to the left down White Horse Street, past the Radcliffe Schools, 351 founded in 7100, and adorned with quaint figures of the charity children of that date, to where St. Dunstan's Church stands in its great churchyard, a beautiful green oasis amid the ugly brick houses. Colet was vicar of this church before he was Dean of St. Paul's. He was followed by Richard Pace, also Dean of St. Paul's, described by Erasmus, who was his intimate friend and addressed many of his letters to him, as utriusque literature calentissimus, and by Stow as endowed with many excellent gifts of nature: courteous, pleasant, and delighting in music; highly in the king's favour and well heard in matters of weight. In 1527 he was sent as ambassador to Venice. Afterwards he lost the royal favour through the influence of Wolsey, and was imprisoned for two years in the Tower. On his release, he lived in retirement at Stepney and was buried near the altar of the church. William Jerome, who was presented to the vicarage of Stepney soon after the death of Pace, was executed for heresy in 1540 .

St. Dunstan's is a handsome perpendicular building,. and contains a number of monuments, chiefly Jacobean. In the porch is a stone inscribed-

Of Carthage wall I was a stone,
Oh, mortals, read with pity,
Time consumes all, it spareth none,
Man, mountain, town, or city.
Therefore oh mortals now bethink
Go where unto you must,
Since now such stately buildings
Lie buried in the dust.

Thomas Hughes. 1663 .

On the right, on entering the church, is the monument of Dame Rebecca Berry, 1696 , wife of Sir John Berry, and 352 afterwards of Thomas Elton of Stratford-le-Bow, which is regarded with much popular favour, though there are those who declare that Dame Rebecca has only been connected with the ballad of The Fish and the Ring or The Cruel Knight and the Fortunate Farmer's Daughter, by the coat-of-arms upon the tomb--which is heraldically speaking --paly of six on a bend three mullets (Elton) impaling a fish; and in the dexter chief point an annulet between two bends wavy. The legend tells that a knight learned in the stars was present at her birth, and, reading her horoscope, knew that she was fated to become his wife. He tried various means for her destruction, and finally attempted to drown her by throwing her from a rock into the sea, but relented at the last moment, and threw a ring into the waves instead, bidding her never see his face again unless able to produce it. She. became a cook, and having found the ring in a codfish she was dressing, presented it to the knight and was married. The knight can have had nothing to regret if we believe the epitaph- Come, ladies, you that would appear
Like angels fair, and dress you here.
Come dress you at this marble stone,
And make that humble grace your own
Which once adorn'd as fair a mind
As e'er yet lodged in womankind.
So she was dress'd, whose humble life
Was free from pride, was free from strife,
Free from all envious brawls and jarrs
Of human life the civil warrs,
These ne'er disturbed her peaceful mind,
Which still was gentle, still was kind,
Her very looks, her garb, her mien,
Disclos'd the humble soul within.
Trace her through every scene of life,
View her as widow, virgin, wife,
353 Still the same humble she appears,
The same in youth, the same in years.
The same in high and low estate,
Ne'er.vex't with this, ne'er moved with that.
Go ladies now, and if you'd be,
As fair, as great, as good as she,
Go learn of her humility.

On the left of the altar is the handsome canopied tomb of Sir Henry Colet, Knight, 1510 , twice Mayor of London, the father of Dean Colet. Sir Thomas Spert, founder of the Trinity House and Comptroller of the Navy under Henry VIII., is also buried here. In the churchyard is the altar-tomb of Admiral Sir John Leake, 1720 , the brave and fortunate, who raised the siege of Londonderry. The great variety of curious epitaphs in this churchyard, in which you may spend an afternoon with great pleasure to yourself, is described in No. 118 of the Spectator. Stupidly covered by gravel, in the path leading to White Horse Street, is the tomb of Roger Crab, 1680 , described in the pamphlet called The English Hermit, or the Wonder of the Age. He served for seven years in the Parliamentary army, and suffered much in the cause, but nevertheless was unjustly imprisoned by Cromwell. Soon after his release he literally followed the precept of the Gospel by distributing all his goods to the poor, except a cottage at Ickenham, where he lived entirely on herbs- dock-leaves, mallows, or grass.

Stepney was the scene of a parliament under Edward I., and the Bishops of London had a country palace and park here till the reign of Elizabeth. There is a tradition that all children born at sea are parishioners of Stepney- He who sails on the wide sea
Is a parishioner of Stepney.

354

We may return from Aldgate to the Exchange through Leadenhall Street . On the left is Leadenhall Market, so called from--the manor of Sir Hugh Nevile, by whom it was founded. Would'st thou with mighty beef augment thy meal,
Seek Leadenhall.
--Gay. Trivia.

On the north (right) of the street is the Church of St. Catherine Cree, rebuilt 1629 , interesting because its interior was the first work executed by Inigo Jones, after his return from Italy, and as having been consecrated (in the place of an older church) by Laud, as Bishop of London ( January 16, 1631 ), with ceremonies which were afterwards made a principal accusation of Popery against him, and were greatly conducive to his death. Hans Holbein, who died of the plague at the Duke of Norfolk's house in Aldgate, 1554 , was buried in the old church. The south-eastern porch of the existing building was the gate of the watchhouse. It bears an inscription stating that this gate was built at the cost and charges of William Avernon, Citizen and Goldsmith of London, who died December, anno dni. 1631 . Above--a strange memento mori to the ever-moving flow of life through the street beneath--is the ghastly figure of the donor, a skeleton in a shroud, lying on a mattress.

The church contains the tomb of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, 1570 , Chief Butler of England (the father-in-law of Sir Walter Raleigh), from whom Throgmorton Street takes its name. His effigy in armour is interesting as that of one who played a conspicuous part in the reigns of the Tudors. Having been server to Henry VIII., he followed the fortunes of the queen-dowager, Katherine Parr, resided with her as 355 cup-bearer throughout her brief married life with Seymour, and was with her at her death. He afterwards served in Scotland under the Protector Somerset, who sent him to bear the news of the victory of Pinkie to London. Edward VI. appointed him privy-councillor, and he was present at the young king's death at Greenwich. In February, IS54, he was arrested on a charge of being concerned in Sir Thomas Wyatt's conspiracy, and was tried in the Guildhall, but was acquitted, after a fierce cross-examination, owing to his own presence of mind and his spirited defence, though the jury were fined for releasing him. For the third time present at a royal death-bed, he fulfilled the request of Elizabeth by taking the wedding-ring given by Philip from the dead finger of Mary, and delivering it to the new queen. In the words of his epitaph he became one of the Chamberlains of the Exchequer, and Ambassador lieger to the Queen's Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, in France. He was also the ambassador sent to remonstrate with Mary, Queen of Scots, on- her intended alliance with Darnley. But in the close of his life he intrigued for the marriage of Mary with the Duke of Norfolk, and was sent a second time to the Tower. Though released, he never regained the favour of Elizabeth, and died of a broken heart, not without suspicion of poison, at the house of the Earl of Leicester, February 12 , 57 1. He was a man of large experience, piercing judgment, and singular prudence; but he died very luckily for himself and his family, his life and estate being in great danger by reason of his turbulent spirit. -Camden.

The epitaph of R. Spencer, a Turkey Merchant, records his death in 1667 after he had seen the prodigious changes 356 in the state, the dreadful triumphs of death by pestilence, and the astonishing conflagration of the city by fire.

The Lion Sermon, which is still occasionally preached in this church, commemorates an adventure of Sir John Gayor, Knight and Merchant of London, who, while travelling in Arabia, became separated from his caravan, and, while wandering alone in the night, was attacked by a lion. Falling on his knees, he vowed his fortune for his deliverance. The lion turned aside, and, with other charitable bequests, Sir John left £ 200 to the parish of St. Catherine Cree, on condition of his escape being sometimes described in a sermon.

Cree Lane, which runs along the western wall of the church, once led to the magnificent Priory of Holy Trinity, also called Christ Church, which was founded by good Queen Maude, wife of Henry I., on the persuasion of Archbishop Anselm. The first Mayor of London, the draper Henry Fitz-Alwyn, who continued twenty years in office, was buried in its church in 1212 . The fact that this was one of the richest monasteries in the kingdom was probably the cause of its being one of the first to be attacked. Henry VIII. gave it to Thomas Dudley, afterwards Lord Chancellor. His daughter married Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who, after Audley's death, lived here in great state at Duke's Place. His son, the Earl of Suffolk, sold the property to the City of London for a large sum, which he expended in the building of Audley End.

We now reach, on the right (at the entrance of the ancient street called St. Mary Axe, where the famous surgeon Sir Astley Cooper commenced practice), the Church of St. Andrew Undershaft , so called, says Stow, because 357 that of old time every year (on May-day in the morning), it was used that a high or long shaft or May-pole was set up there before the south door. The shaft of the Maypole was higher than the steeple. It was pulled down on Evil May Day in the reign of Henry VIII., but continued hanging on hooks in Shaft Alley till the third year of Edward VI., when it was sawn in pieces and [Illustration]burnt by the people after a sermon at Paul's Cross, in which the preacher told them that it had been made an idol of, inasmuch as they had named their parish church under the shaft. The church, which has a picturesque many-turreted tower, is a good specimen of Perpendicular ( 1520 - 1532 ). In the east window are portraits of Edward VI., Elizabeth, James I., 358 Charles I., and Charles II. On the north wall is a monument to Sir Hugh Hammersley, 1637 , with effigies of him and his wife kneeling under a tent, and two standing figures at the sides, attributed to one Thomas Madder. Close by, a curious little specimen of a painted monument, is that of Alice Bynge, who had three husbands, all [Illustration] Bachelors and stationers. At the end of the north aisle is the striking terra-cotta tomb (never painted) of John Stow the famous antiquary ( 1525 - 1605 ), author of the Surveyor London, to which all later writers on the city are so much indebted. The venerable old man is represented sitting at his table with a book, and a pen in his hand. He was a 359 tailor by trade and resided near the well in Aldgate. He describes how the compilation of his works, printed and manuscript, cost many a weary mile's travel, many a hard-earned penny and pound, and many a cold winter night's study. In his old age he fell into great poverty, but all he could obtain in his eightieth year from James I. for his great literary services was a license to beg. His collections for the Chronicles of England, now in the British Museum, occupy sixty quarto volumes. But the same misfortunes which attended him in life were suffered to follow after death, and his remains were disturbed, if not removed, in 1732 .

The fact that Stowe was originally a tailor may account for the interest which he always took in matters of dress, in which he was the grave chronicler of matters not grave. Disraeli.

I confess, I have heard Stow often accused, that (as learned Guicciardini is charged for telling magnarum rerum minutias) he reporteth res in se minutas, toys and trifles, being such a Smell-feast, that he cannot pass by Guildhall, but his pen must taste of the good chear therein. However this must be indulged to his education; so hard is it for a citizen to write an history, but that the fur of his gown will be felt therein. Sure I am, our most elegant historians who have wrote since his time (Sir Francis Bacon, Master Camden, &c.), though throwing away the basket, have taken the fruit; though not mentioning his name, making use of his endeavours. Let me adde of John Stow, that (however he kept tune) he kept time very well, no author being more accurate in the notation thereof. Fuller's Worthies. Opposite St. Andrew Undershaft is an Elizabethan house from whose boldly projecting stories the inmates must have watched the erection of the Maypole and the dances around it. The New Zealand Chambers, hard by, are an ambitious modern imitation by Norman Shaw of old street architecture.

On the opposite side of Leadenhall Street, at the 360 northwest corner of Lime Street, was the House of the East India Company, the most celebrated commercial association of ancient or modern times. The Company was incorporated in 1600 , and first leased these premises from Lord Craven, who was born in the old house on this site. The East India House was several times rebuilt, and finally pulled down in 1862 , when its most valuable contents were transferred to the Indian Museum in Whitehall. Charles Lamb was a clerk in the House. My printed works, he said, were my recreations-my true works may be found on the shelves in Leadenhall Street, filling some hundred folios.

Leadenhall Street joins Cornhill (so called from a cornmarket) where the conduit-fountain called the Standard (built 1582 ) formerly stood like a high round tower. Cornhill also had its may-pole, which was of prodigious size, for Chaucer, writing of vain-boasters, says that they look as if they could bear the great shaft of Corn-hill. Gray the poet was born ( December 26 , 17 16) in Cornhill, where his father was an Exchange Broker, at a house on the site of No. 41, which was destroyed by fire in 1748 , and rebuilt by him. No. 65, the offices of Messrs. King the publishers, rebuilt in 1871 , stand opposite the place where the fountain known as the Standard at Cornhill stood, at which the Great Fire stopped. The old house, while occupied by Messrs. Smith and Elder, was interesting from its association with Leigh Hunt, Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte Bronte, and others. It was here that Charlotte and Anne Bronte presented themselves in 1848 , to prove their separate identity to the publishers who imagined, as all the world did then, that Currer, Acton, 361 and Ellis Bell were the same person. Hence also issued the Cornhill Magazine, with Thackeray as its first editor.

St. Michaels, Cornhill , is one of the churches built by Wren after the Fire. Robert Fabyan, Alderman and Sheriff, who wrote the Chronicles of England and France ( 1511 ), and the father and grandfather of John Stow the historian were buried in the old church. The marked feature of the present building is its great Perpendicular tower, a bad imitation of that of Magdalen College at Oxford. There is a rich modern door with a relief of St. Michael weighing souls. The interior is covered with foolish decorations in polychrome. Seven seats at the end of the nave are set apart as--the Royal pew, Diocesan, Corporation, Drapers', Merchant Tailors' and Rector's pews.

St. Peters, Cornhill -hideous outside-one of Wren's rebuildings and a singularly bad specimen of his work, claims to stand on the earliest consecrated ground in England, and to take precedence of Canterbury itself for there (according to a tablet preserved in the vestry) King Lucius was baptized four hundred years before the coming of Augustine and the conversion of Ethelbert, when he made it the metropolitan church of the whole kingdom. The wood screen in this church was set up by Bishop Beveridge (of St. Asaph), who was rector here 1672 -- 1714 , and is mentioned in one of his sermons. A touching monument by Ryley commemorates the seven children of Mr. and Mrs. Woodmason, burnt in their beds in their father's house in Leadenhall Street, January 18, 1782 . The cherub heads upon the monument are known from a beautiful engraving by Bartolozzi.

362

Change Alley, Cornhill (formerly Exchange Alley), leading into Lombard Street, was the chief centre of the money transactions of the last century, when the Stock Exchange was held here at Jonathan's Coffee House. It was the great scene of action in the South Sea Bubble of 1720 , by which so many thousands of credulous persons were ruined.

Another Coffee House in this alley which played a great part in the same time of excitement was Garraway's, so called from Garway its original proprietor. It was here that tea was first sold in London.

There is a gulf where thousands fall,
There all the bold adventurers came;
A narrow sound, though deep as hell,
Change Alley is the dreadful name.

Meanwhile, secure on Garway's cliffs,
A savage race by shipwrecks fed,
Lie waiting for the founder'd skiffs,
And strip the bodies of the dead.

Swift.

Now we reach the Royal Exchange, whence we set forth,