We may return from the Tower by the long thoroughfare of Upper and , which follows the line of the river, with a history as old as that of the City itself. Narrow and dark, Industry has made it of the most important streets of London. Here-

Commerce brought into the public walk The busy merchant; the big warehouse built; Rais'd the strong crane; choak'd up the loaded street With foreign plenty; and thy stream, 0 Thames, Large, gentle, deep, majestic, King of Floods! Chose for his grand resort. Thomson.

is the very centre of turmoil. From the huge warehouses along the sides, with their chasm-like windows and the enormous cranes which are so great a feature of this part of the City, the rattling of the chains and the creaking of the cords, by which enormous packages are constantly ascending and descending, mingles with uproar from the roadway beneath. Here the hugest waggons, drawn by Titanic dray-horses, and attended by waggoners in smockfrocks, are always lading or discharging their enormous burthens of boxes, barrels, crates, timber,

Thames Street gives cheeses, Covent Garden fruits,

Moorfields old books, and Monmouth Street old suits.

On the left is , built from designs of , -, but altered by Sir Robert Smirke. The most productive duties are those on tea, tobacco, wine, and brandy.

There is no Prine in Christendom but is directly a tradesman, though in another way than an ordinary tradesman. For the purpose, I have a man; I bid him lay out twenty shillings in such and such commodities; but I tell him for every shilling he lays out I will have a penny. I trade as well as he. This every Prince does in his Customs.Selden.

There is a delightful walk on the quay in front of the , with a beautiful view up the river to . From hence the peculiarly picturesque boats called Dutch Crawls may be seen to the greatest advantage: they do not go higher than . Hither, in of his fits of despondency, came Cowper the poet, intending to drown himself.

Not knowing where to poison myself, I resolved upon drowning. For that purpose I took a coach, and ordered the man to drive to Tower-wharf, intending to throw myself into the river from the Custom-house quay. I left the coach upon the Tower-wharf, intending never to return to it; but upon coming to the quay, I found the water low, and a porter seated upon some goods there, as if on purpose to prevent me. This passage to the bottomless pit being mercifully shut against me, I returned back to the coach.-Southey's Cowper, i. 124.

Close to the is the famous fish-market of , rebuilt , but picturesque and worth seeing,

There stript, fair Rhetoric languish'd on the ground; Her blunted arms by sophistry are borne, And shameless Billingsgate her robes adorn. Pope. The Dunciad.

One may term Bilingsgate the Esculine gate of London. Fuller.

Opposite is , by J. B. Bunning, opened . and commemorate the Church of St. Botolph, , not rebuilt after the Fire.

On , between and Little , is the , of Wren's restorations. The spire rests on flying buttresses, in feeble caricature of the grand steeple of St. Nicholas at Newcastle. It was Wren's attempt at placing a steeple upon quadrangular columns, and was at regarded by him with great anxiety. Afterwards he was very proud of this miserable work, and when told that a dreadful hurricane had ruined all the steeples in the City, said,

Not St. Dunstan's, I am sure.

Ziloah

Archbishop Morton, the tutor of Sir Thomas More, was rector of St. Dunstan-in-the-East. Rooks, till recently, built their nests in the trees in the churchyard.[n.423.1] 

, which leads northwards from hence, was

Mincheon Lane,

The was partially rebuilt by after the Great Fire, but only the east end remains from his work. John Brand, author of was rector, and was buried in the church, . Dr. Young, author of

Night Thoughts,

On the Black Prince had a palace. Here, and as we emerge into , the great feature on the right is the , finished , by desire of Charles II., from designs of Wren, to commemorate the Great Fire of . It is a fluted Doric column feet in height, this being the exact number of feet by which it is distant from the site of the house in , where the Fire began. The dragons on the pedestal are by Edward Pierce. The large and comical relief by Caius Gabriel Cibber commemorates the destruction and restoration of the City.

The last figure on the left is intended to express London lying disconsolately upon her ruins, with the insignia of her civic grandeur partly buried beneath them. Behind her is Time gradually raising her up again, by whose side stands a female figure, typical of Providence, pointing with a sceptre formed of a winged hand enclosing an eye to the angels of peace and plenty seated on the descending clouds. Opposite the City, on an elevated pavement, stands the effigy of Charles II. in a Roman habit, advancing to her aid attended by the Sciences holding a terminal figure of Nature, Liberty waving a hat, and Architecture bearing the instruments of design and the plan of the new City. Behind the king stands his brother the Duke of York, attended by Fortitude leading a lion, and Justice bearing a laurel coronet. Under an arch beneath the raised pavement on which these figures stand appears Envy looking upward, emitting pestiferous flames,

and gnawing a heart.

Eleven

of the preceding figures are sculptured in alto-relievo; whilst the background represents in basso-relievo the Fire of London, with the consternation of the citizens on the left-hand, and the rebuilding of it upon the right, with labourers at work upon unfinished houses.

The pillar is surmounted by a metal vase of flames. The original design was to have a plain column, with flames bursting from holes all the way up, and a phoenix at the top.

The Fire began early in the morning of Sunday the , in the house of Farryner, the King's Baker, in . This man, when cross-examined before the Committee of the , proved that he had left his house perfectly safe at o'clock on Saturday night, and was convinced that it had been purposely fired. The rapidity with which the flames spread, chiefly owing to the number of houses built of timber, defied all measures for arresting them, though on the afternoon of the day the King sent Pepys from to the Lord Mayor, commanding him to

spare no houses, but pull down before the fire every way.

endure no more upon the water, and from

Bankside

(

Southwark

) saw the fire grow, and as it grew darker, appear more and more, and in corners, and upon steeples, and between churches and houses, as far as we could see up the hill of the City, in a most horrid, malicious, bloody flame, not like the flame of an ordinary fire. We staid,

till, it being darkish, we saw the fire as only

one

entire arch of fire from this to the other side of the bridge, and in a bow lip the hill for an arch of above a mile long.

I saw the whole south part of the City burning, from

Cheapside

to the Thames, and all along

Cornhill

(for it likewise kindled back against the wind as well as forward),

Tower Street

,

Fenchurch Street

, Gracious Street, and so along to Baynard's Castle, and was taking hold of

St. Paul's Church

, to which the scaffolds contributed exceedingly. The conflagration was so universal, and the people so astonished, that, from the beginning, I know not by what despondency or fate, they hardly stirred to quench it; so that there was nothing heard or seen but crying out and lamentation, running about like distracted creatures, without at all attempting to save even their goods; such a strange consternation

there was upon them, so as it burned, both in breadth and length, the churches, public halls, Exchange, hospitals, monuments, and ornaments, leaping after a prodigious manner from house to house and street to street, at great distances from

one

to the other; for the heat, with a long set of fair and warm weather, had even ignited the air and prepared the materials to receive the fire, which devoured after an incredible manner houses, furniture, and everything. Here we saw the Thames covered with goods floating, all the barges and boats laden with what some had time and courage to save; as on the other, the carts, &c., carrying out to the fields; which for many miles were strewn with moveables of all sorts, and tents erecting to shelter both people and what goods they could get away. Oh, the miserable and calamitous spectacle! such as haply the world had not seen the like since the foundation of it, nor to be outdone till the universal conflagration of it. All the sky was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, and the light seen for above

forty

miles round about for many nights: God grant mine eyes may never see the like! who now saw above

ten thousand

houses all in

one

flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, the shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like a hideous storm, and the air all about so hot and inflamed that at last

one

was not able to approach it; so that they were forced to stand still and let the flames burn on, which they did for near

two

miles in length and

one

in breadth. The clouds also of smoke were dismal, and reached, upon computation, near

fifty

miles in length.

At noon on Tuesday the the Fire began to be checked, at the Temple Church in , and Pie Corner in Smithfield, gunpowder being then used in destroying the houses, and producing gaps too wide to be overleaped by the flames, but by that time the destruction had included churches, the City gates, , many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, dwelling-houses, streets; out of wards it had utterly destroyed , and left others shattered and half burnt. The ruins of the City covered acres, the part left standing occupied acres: the loss was

A committee was immediately formed to inquire into the causes of the Fire, before which Robert Hubeft, a French priest of Rouen, years of age, declared that he had set fire intentionally to the house of Farryner, the baker in , by putting a lighted fire-ball in at a window at the end of a long pole. He pointed out the exact spot where this occurred, and stated that he had been suborned at Paris for this deed, and that he had accomplices. No believed his story, yet the jury who tried him found him guilty, and he was hung. it was shown that he was insane, and the master of the ship which brought him over from France proved that he did not land till days after the Fire. Still the confession of Hubert, in those times of bitter religious animosity, when Titus Oates and his plot had excited additional horror of Papists, was considered sufficient to authorise the inscription on the pedestal of the Monument.

This pillar was set up in perpetual remembrance of that most dreadful burning of this Protestant city, begun and carried on by ye treachery and malice of ye popish faction, in ye beginning of Septem, in ye year of our Lord 1666, in order to ye carrying on of their horrid plott for extirpating the Protestant religion and old English liberty, and the introducing popery and slavery.

Sed furor papisticus qui tam dira patravit nondum restinguitur.

Where London's column, pointing at the sides, like a tall bully, lifts tile head and lies. Moral Essays, Ep. ii. 337.

The house on the site in where the Fire began (No. ) bore, till the middle of the last century, when it was removed because the crowds who stopped to read it intercepted the traffic, the inscription-

Here, by the permission of Heaven, Hell brake loose upon this Protestant city, from the malicious hearts of barbarous Papists, by the hand of their agent Hubert, who confessed, and on the ruins of this place declared the fact, for which he was hanged-viz., that here began the dreadful Fire, which is described and perpetuated on and by the neighbouring pillar, erected Anno

1680

, in the mayoralty of Sir Patience Ward, Knight.

The Monument, which may be wearily ascended for the sake of the view, which is very fine, when visible, is caged at the top in consequence of the mania for committing suicide from it.

Close by is the , a Norwegian jarl, killed in the century in Orkney, where the Cathedral of Kirkwall is dedicated to him. It was rebuilt by after the Fire, in , and is of his best churches. The tower has an octagonal lantern, crowned by a cupola and short spire, picturesque and effective. The roadway beneath it was made in , when it was found necessary to widen the approach to Old . This possibility had been foreseen by Wren, so that it was effected without difficulty, but has injured the solid effect of an otherwise beautiful building. The carved and gilt dial on the tower, erected in

, at a cost of , was given in fulfilment of a vow by Sir Charles Duncomb, who when a poor boy, waiting for his master on , lost him from not knowing the hour, and promised he would give a clock to St. Magnus, if he ever became rich.

On the destruction of the Church of St. Bartholomew by the Exchange, the remains of Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, were removed to this church, of which he once was rector. A monument has been raised to his memory, and records how

On the

4th of October, 1535

, the

first

complete English version of the Bible was published under his direction.

Passing under the approach to and the Fishmongers' Hall, we enter . On the right is , so called from Sir John Poultney, Lord Mayor in and , who founded a chapel there to St. Laurence: it was destroyed in the Fire; but its burial-ground remains. Poultney's Inn, the

right fair and stately house

On the right is , commemorating the house of the De la Poles, Dukes of Suffolk, and afterwards of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk (brother-in-law of Henry VIII.), as is Duke's foot-lane--the private road from his garden to the river. Suffolk House was built on part of the Manor of the Rose, originally called Poultney's Inn. In it was the scene of the alleged treason of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk. Being afterwards in the hands of the Dukes of Buckingham, Charles Knevet, a surveyor who had been dismissed by Edward Stafford,

Not long before your highness sped to France, The duke being at the Rose, within the parish Saint Laurence Poultney, did of me demand What was the speech amongst the Londoners Concerning the French journey: I replied, Men fear'd the French would prove perfidious, To the king's danger.-Henry VIII., Act 1, sc. 2.

On the right is the , also called Allhallows , from its position in the rope-making district, an ugly work of Wren, finished , with a very handsome chancel screen, probably by Gibbons. The altar screen was presented by the Hanse merchants in the last century, and all the carving in the church executed at their expense, as a recognition of the connection of

Spain's rod, Rome's ruin, Netherland's relief,

Heaven's gem, Earth's joy, World's wonder, Nature's chief,

Britain's blessing, England's splendour,

Religion's nurse, and Faith's defender.

Passing under the Railway Terminus, occupying the site of the Stilliard, where the Hanse merchants settled in and remained till they were expelled in the reign of Elizabeth, -, we find an ancient water-gate-sometimes believed to have been the western as the eastern gate of Roman London-commemorated in or , where, says Strype,

the water comes down from other streets with that swiftness that it ofttimes causeth a flood in the lower part.

Thy canvass giant at some channel aims,

Or Dowgate torrents falling into Thames.

On the west side of is the , and, adjoining it, the , incorporated in . The front towards the street was rebuilt in , but that facing , of red and black bricks alternately with a characteristic wooden porch, was built immediately after the Fire. In the Court Room is an admirable portrait of Sir Andrew

In , , is the , rebuilt . An old house near it bears the arms of the Company, an elephant with a castle on its back.

On (right) was the College of St. Spirit and

Richard Whittington was in this church three times buried: first by his executors under a fair monument; then, in the reign of Edward VI., the parson of that church, thinking some great riches (as he said) to be buried with him, caused his monument to be broken, his body to be spoiled of his leaden sheet, and again the second time to be buried; and, in the reign of Queen Mary, the parishioners were forced to take him up, to lap him in lead as before, to bury him the third time, and to place his monument, or the like, over him again, and so he resteth.-p. 91.

so rest,

, on the left, is so called from the machines so common here, used by the merchants of Bordeaux in landing their wines. It was in a warehouse near

the

Three

Cranes in the Vintry

seventeen

cart-loads of rich stuff,

leads to , of cast-iron on stone piers, built by John Rennie, -. Just beyond, on the left, is the open court-yard of the , incorporated, under the name of

the

Wine Tonners,

swan-upping

the Swan with

two

necks.

Behind the houses on the right of is another wretched work of Wren, , so called because

of old time, on the bank of the river of Thames, near to this church, garlick was usually sold.

discovered the excellency of the Common Prayer,

heard the service read so distinctly, so emphatically, and so fervently, that it was next to an impossibility to be inattentive.

In (right) is the rebuilt after the Great Fire on the site of the Hall where the Relief Commission met during the Great Plague of . The Hall contains a number of good royal portraits from Charles I. downwards.

We now reach , a name derived from the

quern

Ripa Reginae,

If that upon so vile a thing Her heart did ever think She wish'd the ground might open wide, And therein she might sink I

With that at Charing-cross she sunk Into the ground alive; And after rose with life again, In London at Queenhithe.

The , lately destroyed, of Wren's rebuildings, had a vane with a ship made to contain a bushel of grain, the great article of traffic.

At (left) on the river was the stone palace of the Bigods and Mowbrays, Earls and Dukes of Norfolk, after their removal from the site of in .

Passing the , which belonged to of Wren's churches, and which groups so well with. later buildings--the only tower of a destroyed Wren church which the City has respected, and, what an

Here lies one More, and no more than he.

One More and no more! how can that be?

One More and no more may well lie here alone;

But here lies one More, and that's more than one.

commemorates the feudal house called Baynard's Castle, destroyed in the Great Fire, and

so called of Baynard, a nobleman that came in with William the Conqueror.

the Lord of Castle Baynard,

Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery,

ends at , an ugly erection of Joseph Cubitt () supplanting the fine work of Robert Mylne, executed in -. The older bridge was at called Pitt Bridge, in honour of the great minister, who is still commemorated in , , and . Mylne's work was so appreciated at the time that he was buried in state near Sir Christopher Wren in , but his bridge was demolished within a years of its erection, and even his house has been swept away by the erection of the Station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway.

Near this, but invisible, is the point-

Where Fleet Ditch, with disemboguing streams, Rolls its large tribute of dead dogs to Thames. Pope, Dunciad.

takes its name from the Dominican monks who came to England in , and settled in on land now occupied by . In they moved to the banks of the Thames, where their monastery and church rose to great splendour through the constant favour of Edward I., who deposited the heart of his beloved Eleanor at Blackfriars, when her body was taken to . The belief that

to be buried in the habit of the Order was a sure preservative against the attacks of the devil

Black Parliament,

a poor weak woman, fallen from favour,

Blackfriars was granted by Edward VI. to Sir Thomas Cawarden,

Master of the King's Revels,

Blackfriars has many other associations. Ben Jonson dates the dedication of his from

my house at Blackfriars this

11th day of February, 1607

.

In order to visit in a group the interesting points in Blackfriars, we may turn up , the last side street on the right before reaching . Here (right) is the , belonging to of the busiest and most useful of the City Companies, which was founded in the reign of James I. Except the Stationers' it is the only Company whose members are strictly what its name implies, and it has members. The laboratories connected with this Hall result from the association of the Apothecaries and Druggists. For till apothecaries were only what druggists are now, and it was their presuming to prescribe which gave such offence to the in the century and led to the verses of Garth-

Nigh where Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams,

To wash his sooty Naiads in the Thames,

There stands a structure on a rising hill,

Where tyros take their freedom out to kill.

Funking Room

founder of modern zoology,

Beare with

one

another; Love as Brethren:

Et bene dum vivis, post mortem vivere si vis

.

At the back of the Hall are the , established , from which the Army is still supplied with

Mortar Room,

Test Room,

Magnesia Room.

Turning left we reach . The names of the side arteries of this Lane-Friar Street, , Holiday Yard, and Pilgrim Street-bear record of the great religious house in their neighbourhood, and of the ancient pilgrimages to the shrine of St. Erkenwald. On the right is the entrance of , a quiet court, with dark-red brick houses and young trees, which marks the site of the building known as

the Kings' Wardrobe,

a library for antiquaries therein to read the mode and fashion of garments of all ages.

Retracing our steps a little, (on the left of as we return) contains, against the wall of Blackfriars School, a monument to Dr. William Gouge, who was minister of the old Church of St. Anne when Shakspeare was residing here, and who, being of like

The Newspaper, the leading journal of Europe, was commenced by John Walter, its number, of January I, , being a continuation of the . The of , was the newspaper printed by steam.

No description can give any adequate idea of one of the Times machines in full work,--the maze of wheels and rollers, the intricate lines of swift-moving tapes, the flight of sheets, and the din of machinery. The central drum moves at the rate of six feet per second, or one revolution in three seconds; the impression cylinder makes five revolutions in the same time. The layer--on delivers two sheets every five seconds, consequently fifteen sheets are printed in that brief space. The Times employs two of these eight-cylinder machines, each of which averages 12,000 impressions per hour; and one nine-cylinder, which prints 16,000 (Ency. Brit.).

In addition to these, Howe's American machine, with

ten

horizontal cylinders, prints

20,000

copies in an hour.

A charming drive along the new leads from to . Its great feature is , the noble work of George Rennie, built - and opened on the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. It is built of granite, and has arches, inches span and high. Canova considered it

the noblest bridge in the world-worth a visit from the remotest corners of the earth;

a colossal monument worthy of Sesostris and the Caesars.

[n.423.1] See Chronicles of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, by the Rev. T. Boyles Murray.

[n.435.1] On what is called the Swan-voyage.

[n.435.2] The Church of St. Martin in the Vintry, where Sir John Gisors of Gisor Hall was buried with his brother and son, was burnt in the Fire and never rebuilt.

[n.435.3] Spectator, No. 147.

[n.437.1] Stow, p. 36.

[n.440.1] See The Builder, Aug. 12, 1870.

[n.441.1] Cuvier. Biog. Univ.