Of all the eyesores of modern London, surely the most hideous is the [extra_illustrations.1.220.4] - that enormous flat iron that lies across the chest of like a bar of metal on the breast of a wretch in a torture-chamber. Let us hope that a time will come when all designs for City improvements will be compelled to endure the scrutiny and win the approval of a committee of taste. The useful and the beautiful must not for ever be divorced. The railway bridge lies flat across the street, only eighteen feet above the roadway, and is a miracle of clumsy and stubborn ugliness, entirely spoiling the approach to of the finest buildings in London. The girders of wrought iron cross the street, here only feet wide, and the span is feet, in order to allow of future enlargement of the street. Absurd lattice-work, decorative brackets, bronze armorial medallions, and gas lanterns and standards, form a combination that only the unsettled and imitative art of the ruthless century could have put together. Think of what the Egyptians in the times of the Pharaohs did--with granite! and observe what we Englishmen of the present day do with iron. Observe this vulgar daubing of brown paint and barbaric gilding, and think of what the Moors did with colour in the courts of the Alhambra! A viaduct was necessary, we allow, but such a viaduct even the architect of the would have shuddered at. The difficulties, we however allow, were great. The London, Chatham, and over, eager for dividends, was bent on wedding the Metropolitan Railway near ; but how could the hands of the affianced couple be joined? If there was no viaduct, there must be a tunnel. Now, the bank of the river being a very short distance from , a very steep and dangerous gradient would have been required to effect the junction. Moreover, had the line been carried under , there must have been a slight detour to ease the ascent, the cost of which detour would have been enormous. The tunnel proposed would have involved the destruction of a few trifles --such, for instance, as , the churchyard adjoining, the printing officebesides doing injury to the foundations of , the , and Newgate. Moreover, no station would have been possible between the Thames and . The puzzled inhabitants, therefore, ended in despair by giving evidence in favour of the viaduct. The stolid hammermen went to work, and the iron nightmare was set up in all its Babylonian hideousness.

The enormous sum of upwards of £ioooo was awarded as the Metropolitan Board's quota for removing the hoarding, for widening the pavement a few feet under the railway bridge over , and for rounding off the corner.

An incredible quantity of ink has been shed about the origin of the sign of the

Belle Sauvage

Savage's Inn,

Bell in the Hoop,

Belle Sauvage

Ye Belle Savage.

the beautiful savage,

In the ante-Shakespearean days our early actors performed in inn-yards, the court-yard representing the pit, the upper and lower galleies the boxes and gallery of the modern theatre. The

Belle Sauvage,

Marocco,

Marocco

ever given to wood the loose and airy lightness of flowers, or linked together the various productions of the elements with a free disorder natural to each species.

[extra_illustrations.1.221.2]  no longer re-echoes with the guard's rejoicing horn, and the old coaching interest is now only represented by a railway parcel office huddled up in the left-hand corner. The old galleries are gone over which pretty chambermaids leant and waved their dusters in farewell greeting to the handsome guards or smart coachmen. Industries of a very different character have now turned the old yard into a busy hive. It is not for us to dilate upon the firm whose operations are carried on here, but it may interest the reader to know that the very sheet he is now perusing was printed on the site of the old coaching inn, and published very near the old tap-room of La Belle Sauvage; for where coach-wheels once rolled and clattered, only printing-press wheels now revolve.

The old inn-yard is now very much altered in plan from what it was in former days. Originally it consisted of courts. Into the outer of these the present archway from led. It at period certainly had contained private houses, in of which Grinling Gibbons had lived. The inn stood round an inner court, entered by a archway which stood about half-way up the present yard. Over the archway facing the outer court was the sign of

The Bell,

Near the

Belle Sauvage

To No. (south side), , that strange, independent man, Lamb's friend, William , the Radical publisher, came from Ship Court, , where he had published those blasphemous for which he was times tried and acquitted, to the vexation of Lord Ellonborough. Here, having sown his seditious wild oats and broken free from the lawyers, Hone continued his occasional clever political satires, sometimes suggested by bitter Hazlitt and illustrated by George Cruikshank's inexhaustible fancy. Here devised those delightful miscellanies, the and into which Lamb and many young poets threw all their humour and power. The books were commercially not very successful, but they have delighted generations, and will delight generations to come. Mr. Timbs, who saw much of Hone, describes him as sitting in a -floor back room, surrounded by rare books and black-letter volumes. His conversion from materialism to Christianity was apparently sudden, though the process of change had no doubt long been maturing. The story of his conversion is thus related by Mr. Timbs:

Hone was once called to a house, in a certain street in a part of the world of London entirely unknown

The Inner Court of the Belle Sauvage. From an Original Drawing in Mr. Crace's Collection.

to him. As he walked he reflected on the entirely unknown region. He arrived at the house, and was shown into a room to wait. All at once, on looking round, to his astonishment and almost horror, every object he saw seemed familiar to him. He said to himself,

What is this? I was never here before, and yet I have seen all this before, and as a proof I have I now remember a very peculiar knot behind the shutters.

He opened the shutters, and found the very knot.

Now, then,

he thought,

here is something I cannot explain on any principle--there must be some power beyond matter.

At No. , opposite Hone's, that well-chosen and fortunate selection of every sort of story, were published.

[extra_illustrations.1.224.1] , which Stow in his designates the and principal gate of London, taken down in at the solicitation of the chief inhabitants of Farringdon Without and Farringdon Within, stood between the present London Tavern and the church of St. Martin. According to old Geoffry of Monmouth's fabulous history of England, this entrance to London was built

This is the ward of Rabbi Moses, the son of the honourable Rabbi Isaac.

In King Lud and his sons looked down on a street seething with angry men, and saw blood shed upon the hill leading to . Sir Thomas Wyat, a Kentish gentleman, urged by the Earl of Deyon, and led on by the almost universal dread of Queen Mary's marriage with the bigoted Philip of Spain, assembled armed men at Rochester Castle, and, aided by Londoners, who deserted to him, raised the standard of insurrection. vessels of the fleet joined him, and with pieces of artillery, captured from the Duke of Norfolk, he marched upon London. Soon followed by men, eager to save the Princess Elizabeth, Wyat marched through Dartford to Greenwich and Deptford. With a force now dwindled to men, Wyat attacked . Driven from there by the Tower guns, he marched to Kingston, crossed the river, resolving to beat back the Queen's troops at Brentford, and attempt to enter the City by Lud Gate, which some of the Protestant citizens had offered to throw open to him. The Queen, with true Tudor courage, refused to leave St. James's, and in a council of war it was agreed to throw a strong force into Lud Gate, and, permitting Wyat's advance up , to enclose him like a wild boar in the toils. At on a February morning, , Wyat reached , was cannonaded at Hay Hil, and further on towards he and some or men were cut off from his other followers. Rushing on with a standard through , Wyat reached Lud Gate. There (says Stow) he knocked, calling out,

I am Wyat; the Queen has granted all my petitions.

But the only reply from the strongly-guarded gate was the rough, stern voice of Lord William Howard--

Avaunt, traitor; thou shalt have no entrance here.

No friends appearing, and the Royal troops closing upon him, Wyat said,

I have kept my promise,

Belle Sauvage.

In the reign of Elizabeth (), the old gate, being

sore decayed,

picture of the lion-hearted queen

Lud Gate became a free debtors' prison the year of Richard II., and was enlarged in (Edward IV.) by that

well-disposed, blessed, and devout woman,

Twenty pounds

.

Devout souls that pass this way,

For Stephen Forster, late Lord Mayor, heartily pray,

And lame Agnes, his spouse, to God consecrate,

That of pity this house made for Londoners in Lud Gate;

So that for lodging and water prisoners here nought pay,

As their keepers shall all answer at dreadful doomsday.

This legend of Lud Gate is also the foundation of Rowley's comedy of , which has in our times been revived, with alterations, by Mr. Planche. In the scene of the act occurs the following passage:--

Mrs. S. Forster.But why remove the prisoners from Ludgate?

Stephen Forster.To take the prison down and build it new, With leads to walk on, chambers large and fair; For when myself lay there the noxious air Choked up my spirits. None but captives, wife, Can know what captives feel.

Stow, however, seems to deny this story, and suggests that it arose from some mistake. The stone with the inscription was preserved by Stow when the gate was rebuilt, together. with Forster's arms,

three

broad arrow-heads,

Strype says the prisoners in Ludgate were chiefly merchants and tradesmen, Who had been driven to want by losses at sea. When King Philip came to London after his marriage with Mary in prisoners in Lud Gate, who were in gaol for , compounded for at , presented the king a well-penned Latin speech, written by

the curious pen

Marmaduke Johnson, a poor debtor in Lud Gate the year before the Restoration, wrote a curious account of the prison, which Strype printed. The officials in

King Lud's House

Remember the poor prisoners!

mobbed,

A curious handbill of the year , preserved by Mr. Collier, and containing a petition of poor Ludgate prisoners, seems to have been a circular taken by the alms-seekers of the prison, who perambulated the streets with baskets at their backs and a sealed money-box in their hands.

We most humbly beseech you,

even for God's cause, to relieve us with your charitable benevolence, and to put into this bearer's box--the same being sealed with the house seal, as it is figured upon this petition.

A quarto tract, entitled by Thomas Browning, citizen and cook of London, a prisoner in Lud Gate,

where poor citizens are confined and starve amidst copies of their freedom,

ON PATIENCE.

Patience is the poor man's walk, Patience is the dumb man's talk, Patience is the lame man's thighs, Patience is the blind man's eyes, Patience is the poor man's ditty, Patience is the exil'd man's city, Patience is the sick man's bed of down, Patience is the wise man's crown, Patience is the live man's story, Patience is the dead man's glory.

When your troubles do controil, In Patience then possess your soul.

In the (Queen Anne) a writer says:

Passing under Lud Gate the other day, I heard a voice bawling for charity which I thought I had heard somewhere before. Coming near to the grate, the prisoner called me by my name, and desired I would throw something into the box.

The prison at Lud Gate was gutted by the Great Fire of , and in , the year of George III.'s accession, the gate, impeding traffic, was taken down, and the materials sold for . The prisoners were removed to the London Workhouse, in Bishopdgate Street, a part whereof was fitted for that purpose, and Lud Gate prisoners continued to be received there until the year , when they were removed to the prison of Lud Gate, adjoining the compter in .

When old Lud Gate was pulled down, Lud and his worthy sons were given by the City to Sir Francis Gosling, who intended to set them up at the east end of St. Dunstan's. Nevertheless the royal effigies, of very rude workmanship, were sent to end their days in the parish bone-house; a better fate, however, awaited them, for the late Marquis of Hertford eventually purchased them, and they are now, with St. Dunstan's clock, in Hertford Villa, . The statue of Elizabeth was placed in a niche in the outer wall of old St. Dunstan's Church, and it still adorns the new church, as we have before mentioned in our chapter on .

In an interesting discovery was made in St. , . Workmen came upon the [extra_illustrations.1.226.1] , or watchtower, part of the old City wall of ; and in a

London

[extra_illustrations.1.226.4]  is probably the greatest thoroughfare in London. Through and Street there have passed in hours vehicles, horses, and persons.

[extra_illustrations.1.226.3] , though of Wren's

Earth goes toEarth,As mold to mold, Earth treads onGlittering in gold, Earth as toReturn nere should, Earth shall toGoe ere he would.

Earth uponEarth,Consider may, Earth goes toNaked away, Earth though onBe stout and gay, Earth shall fromPasse poore away.

Strype says of -

It is very comely, and ascended up by stone steps, well finished within; and hath a most curious spire steeple, of excellent workmanship, pleasant to behold.

The composite pillars, organ balcony, and oaken altar-piece are tasteless and pagan. The font was the gift of Thomas Morley, in , and is encircled by a favourite old Greek palindrome, that is, a puzzle sentence that reads equally well backwards or forwards--

*ni=pson a)no/mhma mh\ mo/nan o)/psin.

(Cleanse thy sins, not merely thy outward self.)

On this church, and other satellites of , a poet has written-

So, like a bishop upon dainties fed,

St. Paul's lifts up his sacerdotal head;--

While his lean curates, slim and lank to view,

Around him point their steeples to the blue.

Coleridge used to compare a Mr. H---, who was always putting himself forward to interpret Fox's sentiments, to the steeple of , which is constantly getting in the way when you wish to see the dome of .

great man, at least, has been connected with this church, where the Knights Templars were put to trial, and that was good old Purchas, the editor and enlarger of He was rector of this parish. Hakluyt was a prebendary of , who, with a passion for geographical research, though he himself never ventured farther than Paris, had devoted his life, encouraged by Drake and Raleigh, in collecting from old libraries and the lips of venturous merchants and sea-captains travels in various countries. The manuscript remains were bought by Purchas, who, with a veneration worthy of that heroic and chivalrous age, wove them into his ( vols., folio), which are a treasury of travel, exploit, and curious adventures. It has been said that Purchas ruined himself by this publication, and that he died in prison. This is not, however, true. He seems to have impoverished himself chiefly by taking upon himself the care and cost of his brother and brother-in-law's children. He appears to have been a single-minded man, with a thorough devotion to geographic study. Charles I. promised him a deanery, but Purchas did not live to enjoy it.

There is an architectural tradition that Wren purposely designed the spire of , Ludgate, small and slender, to give a greater dignity to the dome of .

The London Coffee House, to , , a place of celebrity in its day, was opened in . The proprietor, James Ashley, in his advertisement announcing the opening, professes cheap prices, especially for punch. The usual price of a quart of arrack was then , and for a quart of rum made into punch. This new punch house, Dorchester beer, and Welsh ale warehouse, on the contrary, professed to charge for a quart of arrack made into punch; while a quart of rum or brandy made into punch was to be , and half a quartern fourpence halfpenny, and gentlemen were

Horn,

At No. (north side) for many years Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, the celebrated goldsmiths and diamond merchants, carried on their business. Here Flaxman's , the Shield of Achilles, in silver gilt, was executed; also the crown worn by that august monarch, George IV. at his coronation, for the loan of the jewels of which was charged, and among the elaborate luxuries a gigantic silver wine-cooler (now at Windsor), that took years in chasing. men could be seated inside that great cup, and on grand occasions it has been filled with wine and served round to the guests. golden salmon, leaning against each other, was the sign of this old shop, now

[extra_illustrations.1.229.2]  itself with the modesty of an author in Stationers' Hall Court, , close abutting on , a congenial neighbourhood. This hall of the master, and keeper, and wardens, and commonalty of the mystery or art of the Stationers of the City of London stands on the site of Burgavenny House, which the Stationers modified and re-erected in the and years of Philip and Mary--the dangerous period when the company

The fraternity of the Stationers of London (says [extra_illustrations.1.229.1] , who has written a most valuable and interesting historical notice of the Worshipful Company) is mentioned in the year of Henry IV., when their bye-laws were approved by the City authorities, and they are then described as

writers (transcribers), lymners of books and dyverse things for the Church and other uses.

Mary originally incorporated the society in order to put a stop to heretical writings, and gave the Company power to search in any shop, house, chamber, or building of printer, binder, or seller, for books published contrary to statutes, acts, and proclamations. King James, in the year of his reign, by letters-patent, granted the Stationers' Company the exclusive privilege of printing Almanacs, Primers, Psalters, the A B C, the and Nowell's Catechism. [extra_illustrations.1.230.2] [extra_illustrations.1.230.1] 

The Stationers' Company, for important centuries in English history (says Mr. Cunningham), had pretty well the monopoly of learning. Printers were obliged to serve their time to a member of the Company; and almost every publication, from a Bible to a ballad, was required to be

entered at Stationers' Hall.

The celebrated Bible of the year , with the important word

not

Thou shalt

not

commit adultery

The fool hath said in his hearty There is a God.

no

The only publications which the Company continues to issue are a Latin gradus and almanacks, of which it had at time the entire monopoly. Almanack-day at Stationers' Hall (every , at o'clock) is a sight worth seeing, from the bustle of the porters anxious to get off with early supplies. The Stationers' Company's almanacks are now by no means the best of the day. Mr. Charles Knight, who worked so strenuously and so, successfully for the spread of popular education, struck a blow at the absurd monopoly of almanack printing. So much behind the age is this privileged Company, that it actually still continues to publish [extra_illustrations.1.230.3] , with the nonsensical old astrological tables, describing the moon's influence on various parts ot the human body. year it is said they had the courage to leave out this farrago, with the hieroglyphics originally stolen by Lilly from monkish manuscripts, and from Lilly stolen by Moore. The result was that most of the copies were returned on their hands. They have not since dared to oppose the stolid force of vulgar ignorance. They still publish Wing's sheet almanack, though Wing was an impostor and fortune-teller, who died years after the Restoration. All this is very unworthy of a privileged company, with an invested capital of , and does not much help forward the enlightenment of the poorer classes. This Company is entitled, for the supposed security of the copyright, to copies of every work, however costly, published in the United Kingdom, a mischievous tax, which restrains the publication of many valuable but expensive works.

The Stationers' Hall was in . In they removed to College, near Deanery, where the chantry priests of had previously resided. [extra_illustrations.1.230.4]  closely resembles the hall at , having a row of oval windows above the lower range, which were fitted up by Mr. Mylne in , when the chamber was cased with Portland stone and the lower windows lengthened.

[extra_illustrations.1.230.5]  was erected in , at the expense of Mr. Alderman Cadell. It includes some older glass blazoned with the arms and crest of the company, the emblematic figures of Religion and Learning being designed by Smirke. Like most ancient halls, it has a raised dais, or haut place, which is occupied by the Court table at the great dinners in August and November. On the wall, above the wainscoting, that has glowed red with the reflection of many a bumper of generous wine, are hung in decorous state the pavises or shields of arms of members of the court, which in civic processions are usually borne, by a body of pensioners, the number of whom, when the Lord Mayor is a member of the Company, corresponds with the years of that august dignitary's, age. In the old water-show these escutcheons decorated the sides of the Company's barge when they accompanied the Lord Mayor to , and called at the landing of to pay their respects to the representative of

Stationers' Hall was in used for Divine service by the parish of , Ludgate, and towards the end of the century an annual musical festival was instituted on the , in commemoration of Saint Cecilia, and as an excuse for some good music. A splendid entertainment was provided in the hall, preceded by a grand concert of vocal and instrumental music, which was attended by people of the rank. The special attraction was always an ode to Saint Cecilia, set by Purcell, Blow, or some other eminent composer of the day. Dryden's and Pope's odes are almost too well known to need mention; but Addison, Yalden, , and even D'Urfey, tried their hands on praises of the same musical saint.

After several odes by the mediocre satirist, Oldham, and that poor verse-maker, Nahum Tate, who scribbled upon King David's tomb, came Dryden. The music to the ode, says Scott, was written by Percival Clarke, who killed himself in a fit of lovers' melancholy in . It was then reset by Draghi, the Italian composer, and in was again set by Clayton for of Sir Richard Steele's public concerts. The ode () contains those fine lines :

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began;

From harmony to harmony,

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,

The diapason closing full in man.

Of the composition of this ode, for which Dryden received , and which was afterwards eclipsed by the glories of its successor, the following interesting anecdote is told:--

Mr. St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, happening to pay a morning visit to Dryden, whom he always respected, found him in an unusual agitation of spirits, even to a trembling. On inquiring the cause,

I have been up all night,

replied the old bard.

My musical friends made me promise to write them an ode for their feast of St. Cecilia. I have been so struck with the subject which occurred to me, that I could not leave it till I had completed it. Here it is, finished at one sitting.

And immediately he showed him the ode.

Dryden's ode, was written for the St. Cecilian Feast at Stationers' Hall in . This ode ends with those fine and often-quoted lines on the fair saint :

Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;

He raised a mortal to the skies,

She drew an angel down.

[extra_illustrations.1.231.2] [extra_illustrations.1.231.5]  in , set this ode, and reproduced it at Covent Garden, with deserved success. Not often do such a poet and such a musician meet at the same anvil. The great German also set the former ode, which is known as Dryden himself told Tonson that he thought with the town that this ode was the best of all his poetry; and he said to a young flatterer at Will's, with honest pride-

You are right, young gentleman; a nobler never was produced, nor ever will.

Many magnificent funerals have been marshalled in the Stationers' Hall; it has also been used for several great political banquets. In , the Reform members of the gave a dinner to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Lord Althorp) and to Lord John Russell-Mr. Abercromby (afterwards Speaker) presiding. In , the Duke of Wellington presided over a dinner for the Infant , and in , a dinner for the Hospital was given under Sir Robert Peel's presidency. In the great kitchen below the hall, Mr. Nichols, who is an honorary member of the Company, says there have been sometimes seen at the same time as many as eighteen haunches of venison, besides a dozen necks and other joints; for these companies are as hospitable as they are rich.

The funeral feast of [extra_illustrations.1.231.3] , of the Charterhouse, was given , in Stationers' Hall, the procession having started

32

neats' tongues,

40

stone of beef,

24

marrow-bones,

1

lamb,

46

capons,

32

geese,

4

pheasants,

12

pheasants' pullets,

12

godwits,

24

rabbits,

6

hearnshaws,

43

turkey-chickens,

48

roast chickens,

18

house pigeons,

72

field pigeons,

36

quails,

48

ducklings,

160

eggs,

3

salmon,

4

congers,

10

turbots,

2

dories,

24

lobsters,

4

mullets, a firkin and, keg of sturgeon,

3

barrels of pickled oysters,

6

gammon of bacon,

4

Westphalia gammons,

16

fried tongues,

16

chicken pies,

16

pasties,

16

made dishes of rice,

16

neats'-tongue pies,

16

custards,

16

dishes of bait,

16

mince pies,

16

orange pies,

16

gooseberry tarts,

8

redcare pies,

6

dishes of whitebait, and

6

grand salads.

To the west of the hall is the handsome courtroom, where the meetings of the Company are held. The wainscoting, & c., were renewed in the year , and an octagonal card-room was added by Mr. Mylne in . On the opposite side of the hall is the stock-room; adorned by beautiful carvings of the school of Grinling Gibbons. Here the commercial committees of the Company usually meet.

The painted storeys which stood in the old hall, above the wainscot in the council parlour, probably crackled to dust in the Great Fire, which also rolled up and took away the portraits of John Cawood, printer to Philip and Mary, and his master, John Raynes. This same John Cawood seems to have been specially munificent in his donations to the Company, for he gave new stained-glass--windows to the hall; also a hearsecover, of cloth and gold, powdered with blue velvet and bordered with black velvet, embroidered and stained with blue, yellow, red, and green, besides considerable plate.

The Company's. curious collection of plate is carefully described by Mr. Nichols. In it seems every master on quitting the chair was required to give a piece of plate, weighing ounces at least; and every upper or under warden a piece of plate of at least ounces. In this accumulative manner the Worshipful Company soon became possessed of a glittering store of

salts,

It is supposed that all the great cupboards of plate were lost in the fire of , for there is no piece now existing (says Mr. Nichols) of an earlier date than . It has been the custom also from time to time to melt down obsolete plate, into newer forms and more useful vessels. Thus salvers and salt-cellars were in - turned into monteaths, or bowls, filled with water, to keep the wine-glasses cool; and in a handsome rosewater dish was made out of a silver bowl, and an old tea-urn and coffee-urn. This custom is rather too much like Saturn devouring his own children, and has led to the destruction of many curious old relics. The massive old plate now remaining is chiefly of the reign of Charles II. High among these presents tower the quaint silver candlesticks bequeathed by Mr. Richard Royston, twice Master of the Stationers' Company, who died in , and had been bookseller to kings-James I., Charles I., and Charles II. The ponderous snuffers and snuffer-box are gone. There were also other pairs, of candlesticks, given by Mr. Nathanael Cole, who had been clerk of the Company, at his death in . A small -handled cup was bequeathed in by that worthy old printer, William Bowyer, as a memorial of the Company's munificence to his father after his loss by fire in -.

The Stationers are very charitable. Their funds spring chiefly from bequeathed to them by Mr. John Norton, the printer to the learned Queen Elizabeth in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, alderman of London in the reign of James I., and thrice Master of this Company. The money laid out by Norton's wish in the purchase of estates in fee-simple in has grown and grown. out of this bequest the old printer left to the minister and churchwardens of St. Faith, in order to have distributed weekly to poor persons- appointed by the parish, and by the Stationers' Companytwopence each and a penny loaf, the vantage loaf (the allowed by the baker) to be the clerk's; to be paid for an annual sermon on Ash Wednesday at St. Faith's; the residue to be laid out in cakes, wine, and ale for the Company of Stationers, either before or after the sermon. The liverymen still (according to Mr. Nichols) enjoy this annual dole of well-spiced and substantial buns. The sum of was left for

The pictures at Stationers' Hall are worthy of mention. In the stock-room are portraits, after Kneller, of Prior and Steele, which formerly belonged to Harley, Earl of Oxford, Swift's great patron. The best picture in the room is a portrait by an unknown painter of Tycho Wing, the astronomer, holding a celestial globe. Tycho was the son of Vincent Wing, the author of the almanacks still published under his name, and who died in . There are also portraits of that worthy old printer, Samuel Richardson and his wife; Archbishop Tillotson, by Kneller; Bishop Hoadley, prelate of the Order of the Garter; Robert Nelson, the author of the who died in -, by Kneller; and of William Bowyer, the Whitefriars printer, with a posthumous bust beneath it of his son, the printer of the votes of the . There was formerly a brass plate beneath this bust expressing the son's gratitude to the Company for their munificence to his father after the fire which destroyed his printing-office.

In the court-room hangs a portrait of John Boydell, who was Lord Mayor of London in the year . This picture, by Graham, was formerly surrounded by allegorical figures of Justice, Prudence, Industry, and Commerce; but they have been cut out to reduce the canvas to Kit-cat size. There is a portrait, by Owen, of Lord Mayor Domville, Master of the Stationers' Company, in the actual robe he wore when he rode before the Prince Regent and the Allies in to the banquet and the Peace thanksgiving. In the card-room is an early picture, by West, of King Alfred dividing his loaf with the pilgrima representation, by the way, of a purely imaginary, occurrence--in fact, the old legend is that it was really St. Cuthbert who executed this generous partition. There are also portraits of the Strahans, Masters in and ; of Alderman Cadell, Master in , by Sir William Beechey; and of John Nicholls, Master of the Company in , after a portrait by Jackson. In the hall, over the gallery, is a picture, by Graham, of Mary Queen of Scots escaping from the Castle of Lochleven. It was engraved by Dawe, afterwards a Royal Academician, when he was only years of age.

The arms of the Company appear from a Herald visitation of to have been azure on a chevron, an eagle volant, with a diadem between red roses, with leaves vert, between books clasped gold; in chief, issuing out of a cloud, the sunbeams gold, a holy spirit, the wings displayed silver, with a diadem gold. In later times the books have been blazoned as Bibles. In a

tricking

Verbum Domini manet in eternum

The list of masters of this Company includes Sir John Key, Bart. (

Don Key

This is the of the many City companies of which we shall have by turns to make mention in the course of this work. Though no longer useful as a guild to protect a trade which now needs no fostering, we have seen that it still retains some of its mediaeval virtues. It is hospitable and charitable as ever, if not so given to grand funeral services and ecclesiastical ceremonials. Its privileges have grown out of date and obsolete, but they harm no but authors, and to the wrongs of authors both Governments and. Parliaments have been from time immemorialsystematically indifferent.

[extra_illustrations.1.220.4] Ludgate Hill Viaduct

[extra_illustrations.1.221.1] Grinling Gibbons

[extra_illustrations.1.221.2] Belle Sauvage Yard

[extra_illustrations.1.224.1] Lud Gate

[extra_illustrations.1.226.1] remains of a small barbican

[extra_illustrations.1.226.4] Ludgate Hill and Street

[extra_illustrations.1.226.3] St. Martin's, Ludgate

[extra_illustrations.1.229.2] The hall of the Stationers' Company hides

[extra_illustrations.1.229.1] Mr. John Gough Nichols, F.S.A.

[extra_illustrations.1.230.2] Stationers' Arms

[extra_illustrations.1.230.1] Tate & Brady-title page with Stationers' Imprint

[extra_illustrations.1.230.3] Moore's Quack Almanack

[extra_illustrations.1.230.4] The present hall

[extra_illustrations.1.230.5] The great window at the upper end of the hall

[extra_illustrations.1.231.4] Scientific Conversazione at Stationers' Hall

[extra_illustrations.1.231.1] Title page-Richard Field 1590

[extra_illustrations.1.231.2] Handel

[extra_illustrations.1.231.5] Handel and other musicians

[extra_illustrations.1.231.3] Thomas Sutton