Curiosites of London: D-F

This was scanned in from an old document which has caused numerous misreadings of words. As time moves on, this will be improved.


DAGUERREOTYPE (THE).

THE first experiment made in England with the Daguerreotype was exhibited by M. St. Croix, on Friday, September 13,1839, at No. 7, Piccadilly, nearly opposite the southern Circus of Regent-street; when the picture produced was a beautiful miniature representation of the houses, pathway, sky, &c, resembling an exquisite mezzotint. M. St. Croix subsequently removed to the Argyll Rooms, Regent-street, where his experimental results became a scientific exhibition. One of the earliest operators was Mr. Goddard. The discovery was patented by Mr. Miles Berry, who sold the first licence to M. Claudet for 1001. or 2002″. a-year; and in twelve months after disposed of the patent to Dr. Beard, who, however, did not take a Daguerreotype portrait until after Dr. Draper had sent from New York a portrait to the Editor of the Philosophical Magazine, with a paper on the subject.

With reference to the conditions of a London atmosphere, as regards its influence upon Daguerreotypic or Photographic processes, there are some very peculiar phenomena ; for the following details of which we are indebted to Mr. Robert Hunt, F.R.S., the author of many valuable researches in Photography.

The yellow haze which not unfreqnently prevails, even when there is no actual fog over the town itself, is fatal to all chemical change. This haze is, without doubt, an accumulation, at a considerable elevation, of the carbonaceous matter from the coal-fires, &c. Although a day may appear moderately clear, if the sun assume a red or orange colour, it will be almost impossible to obtain a good Daguerreotype. Notwithstanding in some of the days of spring our photographers obtain very fine portraits or views, it must be evident to all who examine an extensive series of Daguerreotypes, that those which are obtained in Paris and New York are very much more intense than those which are generally procured in London. This is mainly dependent upon the different amounts and kinds of smoke diffused through the atmospheres respectively of these cities. At the same time, there is no doubt the peculiarly humid character of the English climate interferes with the free passage of those solar rays which are active in producing photographic change. It was observed by Sir John Herschel, when he resided at Slough, that a sudden change of wind to the east almost immediately checked his photographic experiments at that place, by bringing over it the yellow atmosphere of London: this is called by the Berkshire farmers blight, from their imagining that smut and other diseases in grain are produced by it.

It is a curious circumstance, that the summer mont are summehs, June, July, and August, notwithstanding the increase of light, are not favourable to the Daguerreotype. This arises from the fact, now clearly demonstrable, that the luminous powers of the sunbeam are in antagonism to tho chemical radiations, and as the one increases, the other diminishes. This may be imitated by a pale yellow glass, which, although it obstructs no light completely, cuts off the chemical rays, and entirely prevents any photographic change taking place.

DEAF AND DUMB ASYLUM.

THE first Asylum or School established in England for the Deaf and Dumb was opened in 1792, in Fort-place, Bermondsey, under the auspices of the Rev. John Townsend, of Jamaica-row Chapel; and of the Rev. H. Cox Mason, then curate of Bermondsey. The teacher was Joseph Watson, LL.D., who held the situation upwards of thirty-seven years, and taught upwards of 1000 pupils, who were thus able to read articulately, and to write and cipher. This tuition was commenced with six pupils only. In 1807 the first stone of a new building was laid in the Old Kent-road, whither the establishment was removed October 5, 1809; when the Society celebrated •the event by a public thanksgiving at the church of St. Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, the Rev. C. Crowther preaching the sermon. A memorial bust of the Rev. Mr. Townsend is placed in th6 committee-room. The pupils, male and female, are such children only as are deaf and dumb, not being deficient in intellect. Other children are admitted on payment of 201. anually for board; and private pupils are also received. The term of each pupil’s stay is five years: they are taught to read, write, draw, and cipher; to speak by signs, and in many instances to articulate so as to be clearly understood. They are wholly clothed and maintained by the charity, are instructed in working trades, and in some cases apprentice-fees are given. The Asylum is amply supported by the wealthy ; and besides its annual receipts from subscriptions, donations, and legacies, &c, it has a funded stock. The pupils are elected half-yearly, without reference to locality, sect, or persuasion. The importance of this Asylum is attested by the fact that in 1833, in 20 families of 159 children, 90 were deaf and dumb.

There is also at 26, Red-lion-square, Bloomsbury, an Institution for the Employment, Relief, and Religious Instruction of the Adult Deaf and Dumb; who are taught shoemaking, tailoring, dressmaking, shoebinding, fancy-work, &c, the produce of their labour being added to the funds of the Society. In the chapel the Scriptures are expounded, and church services regularly held, at which the deaf and dumb are ready and interested attendants.

DIOEAMA AND COSMOEAMA.

THE Diorama, on the eastern side of Park-square, Regent’s-park, was exhibited in Paris long before it was brought to London, by its originators, MM. Bouton and Daguerre; the latter, the inventor of the Daguerreotype, died 1851. The exhibition-house, with the theatre in the rear, was designed by Morgan and Pugin: the spectatory had a circular ceiling, with transparent medallion portraits; the whole was built in four months, and cost 10,000?.

The Diorama consisted of two pictures, eighty feet in length and forty feet in height, painted in solid and in transparency, arranged so as to exhibit changes of light and shade, and a variety of natural phenomena; the spectators being kept in comparative darkness, while the picture re, Phe pictceived a concentrated light from a ground-glass roof. The contrivance was partly optical, partly mechanical; and consisted in placing the pictures within the building so constructed, that the saloon containing the spectators revolved at intervals, and brought in succession the two distinct scenes into the field of view, without the necessity of the spectators removing from their seats; while the scenery itself remained stationary, and the light was distributed by transparent and movable blinds—some placed bebind tbe picture, for intercepting and changing tbe colour of tbe rays of ligbt, which passed through the semi-transparent parts. Similar blinds, above and in front of the picture were movable by cords, so as to distribute or direct the rays of light. The revolving motion given to the saloon was an arc of about 73°; and while tbe spectators were thus passing round, no person was permitted to go in or out. The revolution of the saloon was effected by means of a sector, or portion of a wheel, with teeth which worked in a series of wheels and pinions; one man, by turning a winch, moved the whole. The space between the saloon and each of the two pictures was occupied on either side by a partition, forming a kind of avenue, proportioned in width to the size of the picture. Without such a precaution, the eye of the spectator, being thirty or forty feet distant from the canvas, would, by anything intervening, have been estranged from the object.

The combination of transparent, semi-transparent, and opaque colouring, still further assisted by the power of varying both the effects and the degree of light and shade, rendered the Diorama the most perfect scenic representation of nature ; and adapted it peculiarly for moonlight subjects, or for showing such accidents in landscape as sudden gleams of sunshine or lightning. It was also unrivalled for representing architecture, particularly interiors, as powerful rehef might be obtained without that exaggeration in the shadows which is almost inevitable in every other mode of painting. The interior of Canterbury Cathedral, the first picture exhibited, in 1823, was a triumph of this class; and the companion picture, the Valley of Sarnen, equally admirable in atmospheric effects. In one day (Easter Monday, 1824), the receipts exceeded 200/.

In viewing the Diorama, the spectator was placed, as it were, at the extremity of the scene, and thus had a view across or through it. Hence the inventor of the term compounded it of the Greek preposition dia, through, and orama, scene; though, from there being two paintings under the same roof in the building in the Regent’s-park, it is supposed the term was from dis, twice, and orama; but if several paintings of the same kind were exhibited, each would be a Diorama. {Black.)

Although the Regent’s-park Diorama was artistically successful, it was not commercially so. In September, 1848, the building and ground in the rear, with the machinery and pictures, was sold for 61501. j again, in June, 1849, for 4800/.; and the property, with sixteen pictures, rolled on large cylinders, was next sold for 3000Z. The building has since been converted into a Chapel for the Baptist denomination at the expense of Sir Morton Peto, Bart.

Dioramas have also been painted for our theatres by Stanfield and Roberts, tbe Grieves, and other artists. Other Dioramic exhibitions have been opened in the metropolis. I, emetropon 1828, one was exhibited at the Queen’s Bazaar, Oxford-street; in 1829, the picture was ” The Destruction of York-Minster by Fire,” during the exhibition of which, May 28, the scenery took fire, and the premises were entirely burnt. In 1841, there was exhibited at the Bazaar, St. James’s-street, a Diorama, of five large scenes, of the second funeral of Napoleon; but, though most effectively painted by members of” The Board of Arts for the Ceremony,” and accompanied by funeral music by Auber, the spectacle excited little interest. At Easter, 1849, was opened the Gallery of Illustration, in the large saloon of the late residence of Mr. Nash, the architect, N o. 14, Regent-street, a series of thirty-one Dioramic pictures of the Overland Mail Route from SouthaWpfon to Calcutta; the general scenery painted by T. Grieve and W. Telbin, human figures by John Absolon, and animals by J. F. Herring and H. Weir: in picturesqueness, aerial effect, characteristic grouping, variety of incident, richness of colour, and atmosphere skilfully varied with the several countries, this Diorama has, perhaps, scarcely been equalled: it was exhibited between 1600 and 1700 times, and visited by upwards of 250,000 persons.

The Cosmokama, though named from the Greek (Kosmos, world; and orama, view, because of the great variety of views), is but an enlargement of the street peep-show ; the difference not being in the construction of the apparatus, but in the quality of the pictures exhibited. In the common shows, coarsely-coloured prints are sufficiently good; in the Cosmorama a moderately good oil-painting is employed. The pictures are placed beyond what appear like common windows, but of which the panes are really large convex lenses, fitted to correct the errors of appearance which the nearness of the pictures would else produce. The optical part of the exhibition is thus complete; but as the frame of the picture would be seen, and thus the illusion be destroyed, it is necessary to place between the lens and the view a square wooden frame, which, being painted black, prevents the rays of light passing beyond a certain line, according to its distance from the eye: on looking through the lens, the picture is seen as if through an opening, which adds very much to the effect. Upon the top

of the frame is a lamp, which illuminates the picture, while all extraneous light is carefully excluded by the lamp being in a box, open in front and top.

A Cosmorama was long shown at Nos. 207 and 209, Regent-street, where the most effective scenes were views of cities and public buildings. Cosmoramas have also formed part of other exhibitions. At the Lowther Bazaar, 35, Strand, the ” Magic Cave” (cosmoramic pictures) realized 1500/. per annum, at 6d. for each admission.

DOCKS.

THE Docks of London are entirely the growth of the present century, and the result of the vast increase in the commerce of the preceding 25 years, which was as great as in the first 70 years of the century : a hundred years since, London had not one-twentieth of its present trade. Hitherto, merchandize was kept afloat in barges, from want of room to discharge it at the legal quays, when the plunder was frightful-lightermen, watermen, labourers, the crews of ships, the mates and officers, and the revenue officers, combining in this nefarious system, which neither the police nor the terrors of Execution Dock could repress. At length, in 1789, Mr. Perry, a shipbuilder, constructed at Blackwall the Brunswick Dock, to contain 28 East Indiamen and 50 seriamen aor 60 smaller ships; and in ten years after, the construction of public Docks was commenced.

The district north and south of the Thames, from the Tower to Blackwall, is the most remarkable portion of London. Here have been formed for the reception, discharge, and loading of vessels, on the north, St. Katharine’s Docks, the London Docks, the West-India Docks, the East-India Docks, the Victoria Docks; and on the south the Grand Surrey Docks and the Commercial Docks; these comprise hundreds of acres of water, surrounded by miles of walls, and sheltering thousands of ships j here have been spent, not simply thousands, but millions of pounds, and all this has been effected in about half a century. Before there were any Docks, an East Indiaman of 800 tons was not usually delivered of her cargo in less than a month, and then the goods had to be taken in lighters from Blackwall nearly to London Bridge. For the delivery of a ship of 350 tons, not 70 years ago, eight days were necessary in summer and fourteen in winter : now, a ship of 500 tons may be discharged without any difficulty in two or three days. The mass of shipping, the vastness of the many-storied warehouses, and the heaps of merchandize from every region of the globe, justify the glory of London as ” the great emporium of nations,” and ” the metropolis of the most intelligent and wealthy empire the sun ever shone upon, and of which the boast is, as of Spain of old, that upon its dominions the sun never sets.”

These several Docks have been constructed at the expense of Joint-stock Companies, and have been moderately profitable to their projectors, but more advantageous to the Port of London.

Commercial Docks, Rotherhithe, on the south bank of the Thames, are, upon the authority of Stow, said to include the commencement of Canute’s trench, cut early in the 11th century from thence to Batterseaj and into which the river was diverted when the first stone bridge across the Thames was built, temp. King John. The present Commercial Docks, however, originated in the ” Howland Great Wet Dock,” which existed in 1660, and extended about 10 acres in Queen Anne’s time, larger than the famous basin of Dunkirk. It was then engaged for the Greenland whale-fishery vessels, next for the Baltic trade in timber, deals, tar, corn, &c.; and in 1809 was opened as the Commercial Docks. One of the timber ponds covers 7 acres, and will float above 6000 boards. The Docks, seven in number, extend over 150 acres j the ponds will float 50,000 loads of timber, and the yards hold 4,000,000 deals. The cargo of one timber ship would cover 32 acres, were the deals placed side by side.

East India Docks, Blackwall, lie below the West India Docks, and immediately adjoin the Blackwall Railway and Brunswick Wharf. These Docks, designed by Ralph Walker, C.E., were originally constructed for the East India Company, and completed in 1808. Since the opening of the trade to India, they have been the property of the East and West India Company. Their water area is 30 acres, and their great depth (24 feet) accommodates vessels of very large size; they have a cast-iron wharf, 750 feet in length, in which are more than 900 tons of metal.

Grand Surrey Docks, on the south bank of the Thames: new works, in 1858, cost upwards of 100,000*.

St. Katharine’s Docks, just below the Tower, were planned by Telford, and constructed by Hardwick: in clearing the ground, tWhathe grohe fine old church and other remains of the Hospital of St. Katharine (founded 1148 by Matilda of Boulogne, wife of King Stephen), with 1250 houses and tenements, inhabited by 11,300 persons, were purchased and pulled down : the Hospital and Church were rebuilt in the Regent’s-park. {See Churches, p. 166.) The Docks were commenced May 3, 1827, and upwards of 2500 men worked at them till their opening, Oct. 25, 1828; a labour of unexampled rapidity. The excavated earth was carried by water to Millbank, and there used to fill up the reservoirs of the Chelsea Water-works, upon which has been built a new town south of Pimlico. The cost of St. Katharine’s Docks was 1,700,000*.; or at the rate of 195.640Z. per acre. The lofty walls constitute it a place of ” special security,” and surround 23 acres, of which 11 acres are water, and will accommodate 120 ships, besides barges and other craft. The lock from the Thames is crossed by a vast iron swing-bridge 23 feet wide: it can be filled or emptied by a steam-engine of 200-horse power, and 14 feet depth can be made by the gate-paddles in six minutes. This lock is sunk so deep that ships of 700 tons burden may enter at any time of the tide; and the deptli of water at spring-tides is 28 feet, or equal to that in any other dock of Loudon: the machinery of the gates, by Bramah, is very fine. At these Docks was first provided accommodation for landing and embarking passengers without using small wherries. The frontage of the quays is paved with cast-iron. The warehouses, five and six stories high, are supported on cast-iron columns, 3 feet 9 inches diameter; they have massive granite stairs, huge machinery over the wells or shafts, and powerful cranes on the quays, so that goods can be taken out at once into the warehouses from the ships, and in one-fifth of the time required in the earlier-constructed docks. A ship of 250 tons burden can be discharged at St. Katharine’s in twelve hours, and one of 500 tons in two or three days. One of the cranes cost about 2000*., is worked by ten or twelve men, and will raise from 30 to 40 tons. The vaults below for wine and spirits have crypt-like arches: ” lights are distributed to the travellers who prepare to visit these cellars, as if they were setting out to visit the catacombs of Naples or Rome.” (Baron Dupin.) From the vaultings hang vinous fungi, like dark woolly clouds, light as gossamer, and a yard or more in length, a piece of which applied to flame will burn like tinder; in the spirit-vaidts the Davy safety-lamp is used.

London Docks lie immediately below St. Katharine’s Docks, and were opened in 1805; John Bennie, engineer. They comprise 90 acres: 35 acres of water, and 12,980 feet of quay and jetty frontage; with three entrances from the Thames—Hermitage, Wapping, and Shadwell, where the depth of water at spring-tides is 27 feet. The western Dock comprises 20 acres, the eastern 7 acres, and the Wapping Basin 3 acres, besides a small dock exclusively for ships laden with tobacco. The two large Docks afford water-room for 302 sail of vessels, exclusive of lighters; warehouse-room for 220,000 tons of goods; and vault-room for 80,000 pipes of wine and spirits. The superficial area of the vault-room is 890,545 feet; of the warehouse-room, 1,402,115 feet. The enclosing walls cost 65,000*. The capital of the Company is four millions of money. Six weeks are allowed for unloading, beyond which period a farthing per ton is charged for the first two weeks, and then a halfpenny per week per ton. In 1839 a magnificent jetty and sheds cost 60,000*.; and in the previous twelve years a million of money had been expended in extensions and improvements. In 1858 two new locks were constructed to admit the immense vessels now built: each has 28 feet depth of water, and they are probably the most perfect works of their kind yet erected; engineers, Messrs. Rendell.

In these Docks are especially warehoused wine, wool, spices, tea, ivory, drugs, tobacco, sugars, dye-stuffs, imported metals, and other articles. These, except the wine, tea, spices, and ivory, may be inspected by an order from the Secretary j for the wine a “tasting order” must be obtained from the owners. The shipping and people at work may be seen without any order. Rummage sales are those by order of the Dock Company, for payment of charges, pursuant to Act 9 Geo. IV., cap. 116, sec. 106.

Of the Wine-vaults, one alone, formerly 7 acres, now extends under Gravel-lane, and contains upwards of 12 acres : above is the mixing-house, the largest vat containing 23,250 gallons. The Wool-floors were considerably enlarged and glass-roofed in 1850: the Lnnual importation is 130,000 bales; value, 2,600,000/. A vast Tea-warehouse was completed in 1815; cost, 100.000Z.; stowage for 120,000 chests of tea. To inspect the Ivory-warehouse requires a special order: here lie heaps of elephant and rhinoceros tusks, the ivory weapons of sword-fish, &c.

The great Tobacco-warehouse, “the Queen’s,” is rented by Government for H,000l. per annum: it is five acres in extent, and is covered by a skilfully iron-framed r*of, supported by slender columns: it will contain 24,000 hogsheads of tobacco, value f,800,000£.; the huge casks are piled two in height, intersected by passages and alleys, each several hundred feet long. There is another warehouse for finer tobacco; and a cigar-floor, in which are frequently 1500 chests of cigars, value 150,000?.

Near the north-east corner of the Queen’s Warehouse, a guide-post, inscribed ” To the Kiln,” directs you to ” the Queen’s Pipe,” or chimney of the furnace ; on the door of the latter and of the room are painted the crown-royal and V.R. In this kiln are burnt all such goods as do not fetch the amount of their duties and the Customs’ charges: tea. having once set the chimney of the kiln on fire, is rarely burnt; and the wine and spirits are emptied into the Docks. The huge mass of fire in the furnace is fed night and day with condemned goods: on one occasion, 900 Austrian mutton-hams were burnt; on another, 45,000 pairs of French gloves; and silks and satins, tobacco and cigars, are here consumed in vast quantities: the ashes being sold by the ton as manure, for killing insects, and to soap-boilers and chemical manufacturers. Nails and other pieces of iron, sifted from the ashes, are prized for their toughness in making gun-barrels; gold and silver, the remains of plate, watches, and jewellery thrown into the furnace, are also found in the ashes.

Lastly, in the London Docks in brisk times are employed nearly 3000 men : and this is one of the few places in the metropolis where men can get employment without either character or recommendation. At the Dock-gates, at half-past seven in the morning, ” may be seen congregated swarms of men, of all grades, looks, and kinds. There are decayed and bankrupt master-butchers, master-bakers, publicans, grocers, old soldiers, old sailors, Polish refugees, broken-down gentlemen, discharged lawyers’-clerks, suspended government-clerks, almsmen, pensioners, servants, thieves—indeed, every one who wants a loaf and is willing to work for it.”— Henry Mayhew.

< thont> The two Companies of the St. Katharine’s Docks and the London Docks are now amalgamated, and have offices in Leadenhall-street, built in 1866.

Miliavaix Canal and Graving Docks, engineer, Wilson, extend across the Isle of Dogs, from east to west, with a branch projecting at right angles from the centre.

Victoria London Docks, the, in the Plaistow Marshes, Bidder, engineer, opened 1855, provide a much larger area of water, and will admit larger vessels, than the other London Docks. The lock-gates, cranes, and capstans, are all worked by hydraulic power. The first estimate of cost was a million of money. The basin covers 90 acres, and contains more than a mile of quay and wharfage: contractors, Peto, Betts, and Brassey. In the course of the works, various ancient British and Roman coins were discovered, some Roman urns, a circular shield of tin, bones of deer and some other animals. The ground, which was excavated, consisted of the deposit of the Thames, which, like a huge lake or sea, formerly covered all the now green marshes of Essex. The Victoria Docks, from the peculiarity of position, cost less, it is said, than any hitherto formed.

West India Docks, the, lie between Limehouse and Blackwall, and their long lines of warehouses, and lofty wall, 5 feet thick, are well seen from the Blackwall Railway. These Docks were designed by Ralph Walker, C.E., as ” the Merchants’ Place.” in 1799, and were commenced 1800, when the Rt. Hon. William Pitt laid the first stone; they were opened 1802. Their extent is (including the canal, made to avoid the bend of the river at the Isle of Dogs) 295 acres; this canal is nearly three-quarters of a mile long, with lock-gates, 45 feet wide, and is used as a dock for timber-ships. Tae northern or Import Dock will hold 250 vessels of 300 tons each: when originally opened, it took ten hours to fill, 24 feet deep, though the water was admitted at 800 gallons per second. The southern or Export Dock will hold 195 vessels. Here the ship is seen to the greatest advantage, fresh-painted, standing-rigging up, colour-flying, &c.; whereas in the Import Dock, the vessels, though more picturesque, have their rigging down and loose, the sides whitened by the sea, and contrasting with outward-bound vessels. The warehouses will contain 180,000 tons of merchandize; and there havo been at one time, on the quays and in the sheds, vaults, and warehouses, colonial produce worth 20,000,OOOZ. sterling; comprising 148,563 casks of sugar, 70,875 barrels and 433,648 bags of coffee, 35,158 pipes of rum and Madeira, 14,000 logs of mahogany, and 21,000 tons of logwood, &c. In the wood-sheds are enormous quantities of mahogany, ebony, rosewood, &c, logs of which, four or five tons weight, are lifted with locomotive cranes, by four or five men. For twenty years from their construction, these Docks were compulsorily frequented by all West India ships trading to the Port of London, when the maximum revenues amounted to 449,421Z., in 1813; since the expiry of this privilege, and the depreciation of the West India trade, the revenues have much declined. The Docks are now used by every kind of shipping, and belong to the East and West India Dock Company.

DOCTORS’ COMMONS,

A COLLEGE of Doctors of Civil Law, and for the study and practice of the Civil Law, is situated in Great Knight-rider-street, south of St. Paul’s Churchyard; in the south-west corner of which is an arched g, bs an arateway, and within it the Lodge of Porters to direct strangers to “the Commons.” The civilians and canonists were originally lodged in a house, subsequently the Queen’s Head tavern, in Paternoster-row ; whence they removed to a house purchased for them in Elizabeth’s reign by Dr. Harvey, Dean of the Arches ; here they ” were living (for diet and lodging) in a collegiate manner, and commoning together,” whence the college was named Doctors’ Commons: and the doctors still dine together on every court-day. This house was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666; when the College removed to Exeter House, Strand, till the rebuilding of the edifice in Great Knight-rider-street, in 1672, as we now see it, with a side entrance on Benet’s-hill, nearly opposite Heralds’ College. The buildings are of brick, and consist of two quadrangles, chiefly occupied by the Doctors; a hall for the hearing of causes, &c.

In Doctors’ Commons are—the Court of Arches, named from having been formerly kept in Bow Church, Cheapside, originally built upon arches {see Chttbches, p. 183), and the supreme ecclesiastical court of the whole province ; the Probate Court, which has supplanted the Prerogative Court; the Consistory Court of the Bishop of London; and the High Court of Admiralty : all these courts hold, or held, their sittings in the College Hall, the walls of which above the wainscot are covered with the richly-emblazoned coats of arms of all the doctors for a century or two past.

The Court of Arches has jurisdiction over thirteen parishes or peculiars, which form a deanery exempt from the Bishop of London, and attached to the Archbishop of Canterbury: hence the judge is named Bean of the Arches. The business included, in Chaucer’s time, and down nearly to the present, cases

” Of defamation and avouterie, Of church reves and of testaments, Of contracts and lack of sacraments, Of usury and simony also;”

beside those of sacrilege, blasphemy, apostacy from Christianity, adultery, partial or entire divorce, &c.; also, brawling and smiting in churches or vestries: but the majority of cases were matrimonial, and all these are now transferred to the Divorce Court, and Wills to the Prohate Court.

The Divorce Cotjet, established by the 20th and 21st Victorias, cap. 85, whether sitting in the City of London or Westminster, is now the only Court of original jurisdiction for the trial of causes matrimonial, and for breaking the marriage tie. There may be from this court an appeal to the House of Lords in decrees of absolute divorce; otherwise the House of Lords only hears questions of divorce, as one of the members of the Legislature, which has to pass a special Act of Parliament to effect a divorce.

In the Prerogative Court Wills (until the establishment of the Court of Probate by the 20th and 21st Victorias, cap. 77) were proved, and all administrations granted, that were the prerogative of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

There are several Registries in Doctors’ Commons, under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops. Some of the very old documents connected with them are deposited for security in St. Paul’s Cathedral and Lambeth Palace. At the Bishop of Londoerwshop ofn’s Registry, and the Registry for the Commission of Surrey, Wills (until the 20 and 21 Vict., cap. 77, the Probate Act) were proved for the respective dioceses, and Marriage Licenses are granted. At the Vicar- General’s Office and the Faculty Office, Marriage Licenses are granted for any part of England. The Faculty Office also grant Faculties to notaries public, and dispensations to the clergy ; and formerly granted privilege to eat flesh upon prohibited days. At the Vicar-General’s Office, records are kept of the confirmation and consecration of bishops.

Marriage Licenses, special and general, if to be solemnized according to the laws of the Established Church, are procured upon personal application to a proctor by one of the parties: a residence of fifteen days is necessary by either party in the parish or district where the marriage is to be performed. The expense of an ordinary license is 21. 12*. 6d. ; but if either is a minor, 10*. 6d. further charge; and the party appearing swears he has obtained the consent of the proper person having authority in law to give it: there is no necessity for either parents or minor to attend. A Special License fcr Marriage is issued after a fiat or consent has been obtained irom the archbishop; and is granted only to persons of rank, judges, and Members of Parliament, the archbishop having ajight to exercise his own discretion. The expense of a Special License is usually twenty-eight guineas. This gives privilege to marry at any time or place, in private residence, or at any church or chapel situate in England; but the ceremony must be performed by a priest in holy orders, and of the Established Church. With the marriages of Dissenters, including Roman Catholics, Jews, and Quakers, the Commons has nothing to do, their licenses being obtainable of the Superintendent-Registrar. A Divorce when sought was carried through one of the courts in the profession (according to the diocese), and was conducted by a proctor; the evidence of witnesses was taken privately before an examiner of the court, and neither the husband, wife, nor any of the witnesses had to appear personally in court. This is now all altered in the Divorce Court.

The High Court of Admiralty consists of the Instance Court and the Prize Court. The Instance Court has a criminal and civil jurisdiction: to the former belong piracy and other indictable offences on the high seas, which are now tried at the Old Bailey ; to the latter, suits arising from ships running foul of each other, disputes about seamen’s wages, bottomry, and salvage. The Prize Court applies to naval captures in war, proceeds of captured slave-vessels, &c. A silver oar is carried before the judge as an emblem of his office. The business is very onerous, as in embargoes and the provisional detention of vessels, when incautious decision might involve the country in war; the right of search is another weighty question. Lord Stowell, the judge, in one year (1806) pronounced 2206 decrees. The Admiralty Registry is in Paul’s Bakehouse-court, Doctors’ Commons, where are kept records of prizes adjudicated. The practitioners in this Court are advocates (DD.C.L.) or counsel, and proctors or solicitors. The judge and advocates wear in court, if of Oxford, scarlet robes and hoods lined with taffety ; and if of Cambridge, white minever and round black velvet caps. The proctors wear black robes and hoods lined with fur.

The College has a good library in civil law and history, bequeathed by an ancestor of Sir John Gibson, judge of the Prerogative Court; and every bishop at his consecration makes a present of books.

The Principal Registr decipal Ry of the Court of Prorate is a most interesting establishment. Wills are always to be found here, and generally in a few minutes. They are kept in a fire-proof ” strong-room.” The original Wills begin with the date 1483, and the copies from 1383. The latter are on parchment, strongly bound, with brass clasps, and fill the public-room and other apartments. The searches amount to an

enormous number each year. Some entries of early wills, engrossed by the monks, are beautifully illuminated, the colours remaining fresh to this day.

To obtain Perusal of a Will. —Having obtained a shilling probate stamp, apply, on entering the office at the first small box or recess on the right hand, where a clerk, on receiving the stamp, and the surname of the maker of the Will required, directs the applicant to the Calendars, which are arranged chronologically and alphabetically on the left-hand side of the room. A search must then be made through these volumes for the entry of the Will; which being found, a clerk at the further end of the room, on being furnished with the exact title and date of the Will, ushers the inquirer into another apartment, lit by a skylight, and furnished with a table and benches. Here two clerks are seated; and the actual Will being brought to the inquirer, he may inspect it at his leisure. He must not, however, copy any thing from it, or make even a pencil memorandum; and if he attempt to do so, he will be checked by the clerks.

To obtain the Copy of a Will. —Apply to the clerks in Ihe room, and they will state the expense per folio. The order for a copy must be left at the box at the entrance of the office, where the time will be named for the delivery of the copy within a few days, on payment of the cost. To insure correctness, the copy is read out to the applicant in the office, and compared with the original will; and the copy is moreover duly attested by public authority.

If the applicant merely desires to see the copy of a Will, the clerk in the outer room, on being shown the entry in the Calendar, will refer him by a written note to an attendant, who will at once bring the copy to him; the same rules against copying and making extracts prevail here also.

The principal Kegistry of Wills is open daily from 10 to 4.

Within the last five years, Wills, up to the year 1699, have been, on permission obtained from the judge of the Court of Probate, allowed to be inspected or copied for literary or historical purposes. Under this privilege, a volume of Wills has been published by the Camden Society.

The Wills of celebrated persons are the Curiosities of the place. Here is the Will of Shakspeare, on three folios of paper, each with his signature, and with this interlineation in his own handwriting: a I give unto my wife my brown best bed, with the furniture.” Shakspeare’s Will, which consists of three sheets of brief-paper, has been carefully cleaned, and each sheet has been placed in a polished oak frame, between sheets of plate glass. The frames are made air-tight, and on the top of each is a brass plate, engraved, ” Shakspeare’s Will, March 25, 1616,” and each one is fastened with a patent lock. Next is the Will of Milton, a nuncupative one, the great poet being blind; but which was set aside by a decree of Sir Leoline Jenkins, the judge of the Preroy.< of thegative Court. The Will of Edmund Burke is here, leaving nearly every thing he had in the world to his ” entirely beloved, faithful, and affectionate wife.” . The Will of Napoleon I., deposited here, has been surrendered on the application of his nephew, the Emperor Napoleon 1IL

DOMESDAY-BOOK.

THE Register of the lands of England, framed by order of William the Conqueror, the earliest English record, and ” not only the most ancient, but beyond dispute the most noble monument of the whole of Britain” (Spelman), is preserved to this day in its pristine freshness, fair and legible as when first written. It is comprised in two volumes—one a large folio, the other a quarto. The first is written on 382 double pages of vellum, in one and the same hand, in a small but plain character, each page having a double column. Some of the capital letters and principal passages are touched with red ink, and others are crossed with lines of red ink. The second volume, in quarto, is written in 450 pages of vellum, but in a single column, and in a large fair character. At the end of the second volume is the following memorial, in capital letters, of the time of its completion: ” Anno Millesimo Octogesimo Sexto ab Incarna-tione Domini, vigesimo vero regni Willielmi, facta est ista Descriptio, non solum per hos tres Comitatus, sed etiam per alios.” From internal evidence, the same year, 1086, is assignable as the date of the first volume.

Although in early times Domesday, precious as it was always deemed, occasionally travelled, like other records, to distant parts, till 1696 it was usually kept with the King’s Seal at Westminster, by the side of the Tally Court, in the Exchequer, under three locks and keys; in the charge of the auditors, the chamberlains, and deputy-chamberlains, of the Exchequer. In 1696 it was deposited among other valuable records in the Chapter House, where it long remained, and was kept ” in the vaulted porch never warmed by fire. From the first deposit of Domesday volume in the Treasury at Winchester, in the reign of the Conqueror, it certainly never felt or saw a fire, yet every page of the vellum is bright, sound, and perfect.” (Sir F. Palgrave.) In making searches or transcript, you are not allowed to touch the text, a rule which has beeu kept from time immemorial, and to which the excellent condition of the record may be partly ascribed.

It is a remarkable fact that Domesday-Book, which is usually so minute in regard to our principal towns and cities, is deficient in respect to London. It only mentions a vineyard in Holborn belonging to the Crown; and ten acres of land near Bishopsgate, belonging to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s: yet certainly, observes Sir Henry Ellis, in his Introduction to Domesday, no mutilation of the manuscript has taken place; since the account of Middlesex is entire, and is exactly coincident with the abridged copy of the Survey taken at the time, and now lodged in the office of the King’s Remembrancer in the Exchequer. Still, a distinct and independent survey of the City itself might have been made at the time of the general Survey, although now lost or destroyed, if not remaining among the unexplored archives of the Crown.

The parish of St. Giles’s-in-the-Fields possesses a Book of Record, called Domesday-Book, which is of vellum, and was made in 1624, by direction of the then Bishop of London, as a perpetual parish record; entitln aecord; ed ” Treasure deposited in Heaven, or the Book of God’s House; of things worthy to be remembered in this parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and in the first place of the church now lately restored, some account.”

DRURY LANE,

IN Aggas’s plans, of about 1570 and 1584, Drury-lane is represented at the north end, as containing a cluster of farm and other houses, a cottage, and a blacksmith’s shop ; and the lane in continuity to Drury-place forms a separation from the fields by embankments of earth, something like those of Maiden-lane, Battle-bridge. It was, in fact, a country-road to Drury-place, the Strand, and its vicinity. A low public-house, bearing the sign of the ” Cock and Pye,” two centuries ago, was almost the only house in the eastern part of Drury-lane, except the mansion of the Druries.

The Lane extends from the north side of the Strand to Broad-street, Bloomsbury, and was originally in the “Via de Aldwych,” still preserved in Wych-street. At this end was the mansion of the Druries, wherein Dr. Donne had apartments assigned him by Sir Robert Drury; and here, in 1612, Mrs. Donne died of childbirth, at the same day and hour that Dr. Donne, then at Paris, saw her in a vision pass twice before him, ” with her hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her anns.” William Lord Craven, the hero of Creutznach, became the next owner of Drury House, which he rebuilt in four stories—a large square pile of brick, afterwards called Craven House, where the Earl died in 1697. This mansion was taken down in 1803, and the ground purchased by Philip Astley for the site of his Olympic Pavilkm. In its latter time, the Craven mansion was a public-house with the sign of ** The Queen of Bohemia”—a reminiscence of its former occupancy by the daughter of James I., through whom the family of Brunswick succeeded to the throne of England, and who is suspected to have been secretly married to her heroic champion, Lord Craven. Craven-buildings, erected in 1723, occupy a portion of the grounds of Craven House.

On the end wall of Craven-buildings was formerly a fresco portrait of Earl Craven in armour, with a truncheon iu his hand, and mounted on his white charger; on each side was an earl’s and a baron’s coronet, and the letters ” W. C.” This portrait was twice or thrice repainted in oil, the last time by Edward Edwards, A.R.A. (Brayley’s Londiniana, vol. iv. p. 301.) Hayman, the painter, once lived in Craven-buildings; Mrs. Bracegirdle, the actress, had here a house, afterwards tenanted by the equally celebrated Mrs. Pritchard; and in the back parlour of No. 17, Dr. Arne composed the music of Comut.

The Cock and Pye public-house (opposite Craven-buildings) above mentioned, still remains, and is now a book-shop. Next door is one of the few panelled houses existing ; and the east side of Drury-court, facing the church of St. Mary-le-Straud, is a range of old houses, apparently contemporary with the Cock and Pye, or probably two centuries and a half old. Wych-street, which runs at an obtuse angle with this passage, likewise contains some houses of considerable antiquity.—Archer’s Vestiges, part v.

In the Coal-yard, at the Holborn end of Drury-lane, was born Nell Gwynne j and in Maypole-alley (now Drury-court) she lodged when Pepys saw her looking at the dance around the Strand Maypole:—

” 1 st May, 1667. To Westminster, in the way meeting many milkmaids with their garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them; and saw pretty Nelly standing at her lodging-door, in Drury-lane, in her smock-sleeves and bodice, looking upon one: she seemed a mighty pretty creature.”

Drury-lane was nobly tenanted till late in the seventeenth century; but a paper by Steele in the Tatler, No. 46, represents the lane in its decline; and Gay’s propitiatory lines—

” Oh, may thy virtue guard thee throuprh the roads Of Drury’s mazy courts and dark abodes!”

are almost as applicable now as at the day they were written : Hogarth has made it the locality of the ” Harlot’s Progress.” Pitt-place (above Princes-street) was the site of the Cock-pit, the first Drury-lane Theatre. (See Theatres.)

EARTHQUAKES IN LONDON.

FROM Mr. Milne’s elaborate Register of Earthquakes in Great Britain,* the most complete record of its class, we select the majority of the following details of shocks felt in the metropolis:—

1692, September 8, London and Flanders.

1750, February 8, London and Westminster. Motion of ground from “W. to E. Several chimneys thrown down and walls rent. A shepherd at Kensington heard the noise rush past him, and instantly he saw the ground, a dry and solid spot, wave under him like the face of the river; the tall trees of the avenue where he was nodded their tops very sensibly, and quivered.— Philos. Trans, vol. xlvi.

1750, February 8, between 12 and 1 p.m., all over Westminster. ” Stacks of heavy chimneys were dislodged, and the Thames became greatly agitated. The barristers were greatly alarmed, for they thought that Westminster Hall was falling down.”— Walcott’s Westminster, p. 22.

1750, March 8. Motion from E. to W.; houses near the Thames were most shaken. Near London there was a continued and confused lightning till within a minute or two of the shock ; dogs howled, fish jumped three feet out of water; sound in air preceded concussions; flashes of lightning and a ball of fire were seen just before explosion. The President of the Royal Society (Martin Folkes) stated that he did not on this occasion perceive that lifting motion which he was sensible of on 8th February, but he felt very quick shakes or tremors horizontally. A boatman on the Thames felt his boat receive a blow at the bottom, and the whole river seemed agitated. The Rev. Mr. Pickering stated that he was lying awake in his bed, which stood N. and S. He first ” heard a sound like that of a blast of wind. I then perceived myself raised in my bed, and the motion began on my right side, and inclined me towards the left.” In the Temple Gardens, the noise in the air was greater than the loudest report of cannon. At the same instant, the buildings inclined over from the perpendicular several degrees. The general impression was, that the whole city was violently pushed to S.E., and then brouglijt back again. The sound preceded the concussions, resembling the discharge of several cannon, or distant thunder in the air, and not a subterranean explosion. Flashes of lightning uarof lighwere observed an hour (before ?) and a vast ball of fire. At Kensington, the bailiff of Mr. Fox, at a quarter past five a.m., heard (when in the open air) a noise much like thunder at a distance, which, coming from N.W., grew louder, and gave a crack over his head, and then gradually died away. The sky was clear, and he saw no fire or appearances of lightning. Immediately after the crack, the ground shook, and it moved like a quagmire. The whole lasted a minute.— Philosophical Transactions, vol. xlvi.

” At half-past five a.m. the whole city of Westminster was alarmed by another shock more severe than the former (Feb. 8), accompanied by a hollow rumbling noise; and numbers of people were awakened in amazement and fear from their sleep. Great stones were thrown from the ‘ new spire’ of Westminster Abbey, and fish jumped half a yard above the water; and in several steeples the bells were struck by chime-hammers. An impostor pretended to foretel an earthquake on a particular day, which would lay Westminster in ruins; and when the appointed time arrived, the people ran out in crowds into the country to escape such a terrible catastrophe. The churches could scarcely contain the throngs of worshippers. The pulpits and public prints were employed in deprecating God’s wrath and calling a degenerate people to repentance. But, unhappily, it was a devotion as shortlived only as their fear.” —Walcott’s Westminster, p. 22.

Horace Walpole writes to Sir Horace Mann, March 11,1750:—” In the night, between Wednesday and Thursday last (exactly a month since the first shock), the earth had a shivering fit between one and two; but so slight, that if no more had followed, 1 don’t believe it would have been noticed. I had been awake, and had scarce dozed again, when on a sudden I felt my bolster lilt up my head; I thought somebody was getting from under my bed, but soon found it was a strong earthquake, that lasted near

* Notices of Earthquake Shocks felt in Great Britain. By David Milne, Esq., F.E.S.E., M.W.S. F.G.S., &c. Communicated to Jameson’s Journal, No. 61.

half a minute, with a violent vibration and great roaring. I rang ray bell, my servant came in frightened out of his senses: in an instant we heard all the windows in the neighbourhood flung up. I got up, and found people running into the streets, but saw no mischief done; there has been some—two old houses flung down, several chimneys, and much china-ware. The bells rung in several houses. Admiral Knowles, who had lived long in Jamaica, and felt seven there, says this was more violent than any of them. Francesco prefers it to the dreadful one at Leghorn. * * * It has nowhere reached above ten miles from London. The only visible effect it has had was on the Eidotto, at which, being the following night, there were but 400 people. A parson who came into White’s the morning of earthquake the first, and heard bets laid on whether it was an earthquake or the blowing up of powder-mills, went away exceedingly scandalized, and said,’ I protest they are such an impious set of people, that I believe if the last trumpet was to sound, they would bet puppet-show against Judgment.'”

1756, February 8. About 8 A.M., a shock felt at Dover and London.

1761, February 8. A shock most sensibly felt along the banks of the Thames from Greenwich near to Richmond. At Limehouse and Poplar, chimneys were thrown down; and in several parts of London, theinof Londe furniture was shaken, and the pewter fell to the ground : at Hampstead and Highgate, it was also very perceptible.

1761, March 8. A more violent shock, between five and six a.m., the air being very warm, and the atmosphere clear and serene; though, till within a few minutes preceding, there had been strong but confused lightning in quick succession. The violence of the motion caused many persons to start from their beds and flee to the street, under the impression that their houses were falling. In St. James’s Park, and in the squares and open places about the West-end of the town, the tremulous vibration of the earth was most distinguishable; it seemed to move in a south and north direction, with a quick return towards the centre, and was accompanied with a loud noise as of rushing wind.

A crazy life-guardsman predicted a third earthquake within a month from the above, and drove thousands of persons from the metropolis j whilst another wight advertised pills ” good against earthquakes.”

In 1842, an absurd report gained credence among the weak-minded, that London would be destroyed by earthquake on the 17th of March, St. Patrick’s Day. This rumour was founded on certain doggerel prophecies : one pretended to be pronounced in the year 1203, and contained in the Harleian Collection (British Museum), 800 b. folio 319 ; the other by Dr. Dee, the astrologer (1598, MS. in the British Museum). The rhymes, with these “authorities,” inserted in the newspapers, actually excited some alarm, and a great number of timid persons left the metropolis before the 17th. Upon reference to the British Museum, the ” prophecies ” were not, however, to be found; and their forger has confessed them to have been an experiment upon public credulity.

In 1863, Oct. 6, the centre and western parts of England were shaken; and in London and the suburbs the shock was slightly felt.

EASTCHEAP.

THIS ancient thoroughfare originally extended from Tower-street westward to the south end of Clement’s-lane, where Cannon-street begins. It was the Eastern Cheap or Market, as distinguished from West Cheap, now Cheapside ; and was crossed by Fish-street-hill, the eastern portion being Little Eastcheap (now Eastcheap), and the western Great Eastcheap: the latter, with St. Michael’s Church, Crooked-lane, disappeared in the formation of the new London Bridge approaches.

Mr. Kempe, F.S.A., considers Eastcheap to have been the principal or Praetorian gate of the Roman garrison, leading into the Roman Forum j and in 1831 there were found here a Roman roadway, two wells, the architrave of a Roman Building, &c.; in Miles-lane, a’ piece of the Roman wall, cinerary urns, coins of Claudius and Vespasian; and in Bush-lane, remains of the Prsetorium itself, in fragments of brick, with inscriptions designating them as formed under the Prsetorsbip of Agricola.— Gent. Mag. March, 1842.

Eastcheap was next the Saxon Market, celebrated from the time of Fitzstephen to

the days of Lydgate for the provisions sold there:

” Then I hyed me into Est-Chcpe, One cryes ribbes of befe and many a pye: Pewter pottes they clattered on a heape.”— London Lyckpenny.

In Great Eastcheap was the Boar’s Head Tavern, first mentioned temp. Richard II.;

the scene of the revels of Falstaff and Henry V., when Prince of Wales, in

Shakspeare’s Henry IV., Part 2. Stow relates a riot in ” the cooks’ dwellings ” here

on St. John’s Eve, 1410, by Princes John and Thomas, for unceremoniously quelling

which the mayor, aldermen, and sheriffs were cited before Chief Justice Gascoigne, but discharged honourably, the king reproving his own sons. The tavern was destroyed in the Great Fire, but was rebuilt within two years, as attested by a boar’s head cut in stone, with the initials of the landlord, I. T., and the date 1668, above the first-floor window. This sign-stone is now in the Guildhall library. The house stood between Small-alley and St. Michael’s-lane, and in the rear looked upon St. Michael’s churchyard, where was buried a drawer, or waiter, at the tavern, d. 1720: in the church was interred John Rhodoway, ” Vintner at the Bore’s Head,” 1623.

Maitland, in 1739, mentions the Boar’s Head, with ” This is the chief tavern in London ” under the sign. Goldsmith (Essays), Boswell (Life of Dr. Johnson), and Washington Irving (Sketch-book), have idealized the house as the identical place which Falstaff frequented, forgetting its destruction in the Great Fire. The site of the Boar’s Head is very nearly that of the statue of King William IV.

In 1834, Mr. Kempe, F.S.A., exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries a carved oak figure of Sir John Falstaff, in the costume of the sixteenth century. It supported an ornamental bracket over one side of the door of the Boar’s Head, a figure of Prince Henry sustaining that on the other. The Falstaff was the property of Mr. Thomas Shelton, brazier, Great Fastcheap, whose ancestors had lived in the shop he then occupied ever since the Great Fire. He well remembered the last Grand Shakspearean Dinner-party at the Boar’s Head, about 1784. A boar’s bead with silver tusks, which had been suspended in some room in the tavern, perhaps the Half-Moon or Pomegranate (see Henry IV., act ii. sc. 4), at the Great Fire fell down with the ruins of the house, and was conveyed to Whitechapel Mount, where, many years after, it was recovered and identified with its former locality. At a public-house, No. 12, Miles-lane, was long preserved a tobacco-box with a painting of the original Boar’s Head Tavern on the lid.

EAST INDIA HOUSE,

OR the House of the East India Company, ” the most celebrated commercial Association of ancient or modern times, and which has extended its sway over the whole of the Mogul Empire,” was situated on the south side of Leadenhall-street, and was taken down in 1862.

The tradition of the House is, that the Company, incorporated December 31, 1600, first transacted their business in the great room of the Nag’s Head Inn, opposite St.-la opposi Botolph’s Church, Bishopsgate-street. The maps of London, soon after the Great Fire, place the India House on a part of its late site in Leadenhall-street. Here originally stood the mansion of Alderman Kerton, built in the reign of Edward VI., rebuilt on the accession of Elizabeth, enlarged by its next purchaser, Sir William Craven, lord mayor in 1610 : here was born the great Lord Craven, who in 1701 leased his house and a tenement in Lime-street to the Company, at 100/. a-year. A scarce Dutch etching in the British Museum shows this house to have been half-timbered, its lofty gable surmounted with two dolphins and a figure of a mariner, or, as some say, of the first Governor; beneath are merchant-ships at sea, the Royal arms, and those of the Company. This grotesque strncture was taken down in 1726, and upon its site was erected “the old East India House,” to which, in 1799 and 1800, was built a handsome stone front, 200 feet long, by Jupp, and other enlargements by Cockerell, R.A., and Wilkins, R.A. It had a hexastyle Ionic portico of six fluted columns, from the ancient temple of Apollo Didymajus, and in the tympanum of the pediment were sculptured by Bacon, jun., figures emblematic of the commerce of the East, shielded by George III.: on the upper acroterium was a statue of Britannia; and on the two lower, a figure of Europe on a horse, and Asia on a camel.

The interior contained many fine statues and pictures. The new Sale-room approached in interest the Rotunda of the Bank of England. The Court-room (Directors’) was an exact cube of 30 feet; was richly gilt, and was hung with six pictures of the Cape, St. Helena, and Tellicherry: and over the chimney was a large marble group of figures, supported by caryatides. The general Court-room (Proprietors’) had in niches statues of Lord Clive, Warren Hastings, the Marquis Cornwallis, Sir Eyre Coote, General Lawrance, Sir George Pococke, and the Marquis Wellesley. The Finance and Home Committee-room had one wall entirely occupied by a picture of the grant of the Dewanee to the Company in 1765, the foundation of the British power in India: here also were portraits of Warren Hastings and the Marquis Cornwallis; Mirza Abul Hassan, the Persian envoy to London in 1809, &c. The Library contained, perhaps,

the most splendid assemblage of Oriental MSS. in Europe, many with illuminated drawings; Tippoo Sultan’s Register of Dreams (with interpretations), and his Koran; a large collection of Chinese printed hooks; and a M.S. Sanscrit tract on the Astrolabe, of which Chaucer’s celebrated treatise is a literal translation, though the poet may have translated it from an Arabic or a Latin version.

The auction sale of the materials of the India House occupied five days; the most valuable of the contents having been transferred to the temporary quarters of the Indian Government, in Victoria-street, Westminster. There were 15,000 feet of York and Portland paving; 4000 feet run of Portland coping, stone sills, stringing, cornice, and other stonework; 2000 feet of sheet copper, 200 tons of lead on the roofs, 2000 squares of flooring boards; 1700 doors of all kinds, including some of solid mahogany; and an immense variety of other materials, covering an acre and a half of ground. The Museum, with elegantly slender, moulded, and decorated columns, supporting the interior of an arcaded quadrangle, surmounted by an ornamental domed lantern, and paved in mosaic work, was a beautiful example of Moorish and Indian architecture, erected about three years previously from the designs of Digby Wyatt: it cost several thousand pounds, and was sold for 79/.10«. The site was subsequently sold for 155,000/., at the rate of something more than 100,000/. per acre; 10,000/. petre; 10,00r acre more than was given for the site of Gresham House. Hereupon has been erected a vast collection of Chambers, principal front 300 feet long; E. N. Clifton, architect: the structure is a very fine piece of Italian street architecture.

In clearing the site were found the remains of a Roman house, at a considerable depth; opposite tbe East India House portico, in 1803, was found the most magnificent Soman tesselated pavement yet discovered in London.

It lay at only 9 feet below the street, but a third side had been cut away for a sewer; it appeared to have been the floor of a room more than twenty feet square. In the centre was Bacchus upon a tiger, encircled with three borders (inflexions of serpents, cornucopia?, and squares diagonally concave), and drinking-cups and plants at the angles. Surrounding the whole was a square border of a bandeau of oak, and lozenge figures and true-lovers’ knots, and a five-feet outer margin of plain red tiles. The pavement was broken in taking up, but the pieces are preserved in the library of the East India Company ; a fragment of an urn and a.jaw-bone were found beneath one corner. “In this beautiful specimen of Roman mosaic,” says Mr. Fisher, who published a coloured print of it,” the drawing, colouring, and shadows are all effected by about twenty separate tints, composed of tessella; of different materials, the major part of which are baked earths; but the more brilliant colours of green and purple, which form the drapery, are of glass. These tessellae are of different sizes and figures, adapted to the situations they occupy in the design.”

Mr. W. H. Black, F.S.A., accounts for various discoveries of tessellated pavement and other remains in the neighbourhood of Leadenhall-street, by these places being outside Walbrook, the eastern boundary of what Mr. Black regards as Roman London. He contends that these remains, in all probability, belong to the villas of Roman citizens, in what, until the time of Constantino, were the suburbs of the City.— Proc. Soc. Antiq., 1864.

The East India Company became an exclusively political institution; the Act 3 & 4 Will. IV., prolonging the charter till 1854, debarring the Company from the privilege of trading. Before this reduction, nearly 400 men were employed in the warehouses, and the number of clerks was above 400. The fifteen warehouses often contained 50,000,000 lbs. (above 22,000 tons) of tea: and 1,200,000 lbs. have been sold in one day. (In 1668, the Company ordered ” one hundred pounds weight of good teye ” to be sent home on speculation!) The clerks’ business was very heavy: from 1793 to 1813, the explanatory matter from the Indian Government filled 9094 large folio volumes; and from that year to 1829,14,414; and a military despatch has been accompanied with 199 papers, containing 13,511 pages. In 1826, the patronage of each East India Director for the year was estimated at 20,000/. sterling.

The twenty-four Directors received 300J. each, and 500/. for their ” chairs,” being a charge on the Hindoos of 7700/. per annum. Except a few satrapies, cadies, high-priests, and teachers of hosts, the directors exercised the whole patronage of nomination to Indian office, civil, military, and clerical. Hoole, the translator of Tasso; Charles Lamb, the author of Elia; and James Mill, the historian of British India, were clerks in the East India House. ” My printed works,” said Lamb, ” were my recreations—my true works may be found on the shelves in Leadenhall-street, rilling some hundred folios.” belios.”<

The Company’s Museum has been removed to Fife House, Whitehall. (See Museums, &c.)

EGYPTIAN HALL, PICCADILLY.

THIS edifice, and a smaller structure in Welbeck-street, are, in single features and details, the only specimens of Egyptian architecture in London. The latter was, as originally erected, the most correct in character, but has since been almost spoiled. The Hall in Piccadilly conforms to the style in the columns and general outline, as indicated by the inclined torus-moulding at the extremity of the front, the cornice, &c.;

though the composition itself is at variance with the principles of genuine Egyptian architecture, the front heing divided into two floors, with wide instead of narrow-windows to both. The details are mostly from the great temple of Tentyra, with the scarabseus, winged mundus, hieroglyphics, &c. The architect’s name, G. P. Robinson, is inscribed upon the facade. The entablature is supported by colossal figures of Isis and Osiris, sculptured by L. Gahagan. The Hall cost 16,000^., and was built in 1812 for a museum of natural history collected by W. Bullock, F.L.S., during thirty years’ travel in Central America, which was exhibited here until 1819, when it was sold in 2248 lots*

The Egyptian Hall contains lecture-rooms, a bazaar, and a large central room, ” the Waterloo Gallery.” As the Hall has been a sort of Ark of Exhibitions, we enumerate the Curiosities which have been shown here: —

1816. The Judgment of Brutus, painted by Le Thiere, president of the Academy of St. Luke, at Kome.— Water-colour Paintings of Minerals and Shells, by Chev. de Barde.— Napoleon’s Travelling, Chariot, built for his Russian campaign, and adapted for a bed-room, dressing-room, pantry, kitchen, &c.; captured at Waterloo : seen at the Egyptian Hall by 800,000 persons ; transferred to the Tussaud Exhibition, in Baker-street, Portman-square.

1819. Sale of Bullock’s Museum: produce, 99742. 13*.; cost, 30,0002.

1821. Facsimile of the Tomb of Psammuthis, King of Thebes, discovered by Bclzoni; constructed and painted from drawings and wax-impressions taken by him of all the original figures, hieroglyphics, emblems, &c.; the two principal chambers illuminated: first day, 1900 admissions, at 2s. (id. each.

1822. Laplanders and Reindeer: 1001. per day taken for six weeks.— Pair of Wapeti, or Elks, from the Upper Missouri; and a pretended Mermaid, visited by 300 and 400 persons daily.t

1824. Mexican Museum, ancient and modern.— Esquimaux Man and Woman. — Hatching Chicken* by Artificial Heat.

1825. Rath, or Burmese, Imperial State Carriage, captured by theEritish in 1824: the coach and the throne-seat, studded with 20,000 gems, are stated to have cost 12,5002. at Tavoy.— Model of Switzerland.

1826. The Musical SiPalhe Musisters, four and six years old, harpist and pianist.— Altar-piece, by Murillo.— The Pecilorama, views painted by Stanfield.

1827. The Tyrolese Minstrels, four males and one female.

1828. Pictures of Battles of the French Armies, painted by General Le Jeune.— The Death of Virginia, painted by Le Thiere.—Haydon’s Picture of the Mock Election in the King’s Bench, bought by George IV. for 500 guineas, and sent from the Egyptian Hall to St. James’s Palace.

1829. Troubadours (singers).— The Siamese Twins,tvto youths of eighteen, natives of Siam, united by a short band at the pit of the stomach—” two perfect bodies, bound together by an inseparable link.”

1330. Vox Bipartitus, or two voices in one.— Sculpture, by Lough.— Tableaux Vivans (ancient pictures by living figures).— Michael Boai, or the chin-chopper, a la Buckhorse.

1831. Model of the Thidtre Frangais, Paris. — A Cobra di Capello, the first brought alive to Europe.— Two Orang-outangs and a Chimpanzee. —A Double-sighted Boy, M’Kean, aged eight years.— Scrymegour’s Picture of the First Sign in Egypt. — Double-sighted Boy. —The Egyptian Hall converted into a Bazaar.

1832. Museum of Etruscan Antiquities. — Royal Clarence Vase, of glass, made at Birmingham.— The Brothers Koeller, singers, from Switzerland.—Haydon’s Pictures of Xenophon and the 10,000; and his Mock Election, lent by George IV. for exhibition; Death of Eucles, &c.

1835. Views of Paris, painted by M. Dupressoir.

1837. A Living Male Child, with four hands, four arms, four legs, four feet, and two bodies, born at Staleybridge, Manchester.— Masquerades.

1838. Le Brun’s Picture of the Battle of Arbela, embossed on copper, by Szentpetery.—Captain Siborne’s Model of the Battle of Waterloo, with 190,000 figures; now in the Museum of the United Service Institution.

1839. Skeleton of a Mammoth Os. — Pictorial Storm at Sea, introducing Grace Darling and the ” Forfarshire Wreck.”

1840. Aubusson Carpets.— Vng-ka-puti (Gibbon monkey), from Sumatra.— Bioplulax, or Life and Property Protector.—Haydon’s large Picture of the General Anti-Slavery Convention.

1841. Catlin’s North American Indian Gallery of 310 portraits of chiefs, and 200 views of villages, religious ceremonies, dances, ball-plays, buffalo-hunts—in all, 3000 full-length figures, with costumes and other produce, from a wigwam to a rattle, filling a room 106 feet long.—The Missouri Leviathan Skeleton. —The Great Pennard Cheese, presented to the Queen.

1843. Sir George Hayter’s Great Picture of the First Reformed Parliament, figures half-life size.— Model of Venice. —The Napoleon Museum.

1844. The American Dwarf, “Tom Thumb,” whose exhibition often realized 1252. a day; while, in sickening contrast, in an adjoining room, the pictures of Haydon (to whom Wordsworth wrote ” High is our calling, friend “) were scarcely visited by a dozen persons in a week. The ” Banishment of Aristides,” Haydon’s last picture, was shown here, and its failure hastened the painter to his awful end.— Nine Ojibbeway Indians, from Lake Huron, in their native costumes, exhibiting their war-dances and sports.— German Dwarfs.

1845. The Eureka, a machine for composing hexameter Latin verses; a practical illustration of the law of evolution.—Second Exhibition of Captain Siborne’s Model of the Battle of Waterloo.

* Bullock’s ” Liverpool Museum” was opened at 22, Piccadilly, in 1805, in the room originally occupied by Astley for his evening performance of horsemanship; his amphitheatre not being roofed until 1780, and therefore allowing only day exhibitions.

t In Manners and Customs of the Japanese, published in 1841, the above ” Mermaid ” (the head and shoulders of a monkey neatly attached to a headless fish) is proved to have been manufactured in Japan brought to Europe by an American adventurer, and valued at 10002. A pretended Mermaid was also exhibited in London in 1775; and in Broad-court, Covent-garden, in 1794.

1846. Prof. Faber’s Euphonia, or speaking automaton, enunciating sounds and words; played by keys.— Mammoth Sorse. — Polar Dog. — Bosjesman Family. —The Hock Sarmonicon. — Curiosities from Australia.—Professor Kist’s Poses Plastiques. —A Dwarf dressed in a bear-skin: the ” What is it V immediately detected.

1847. Second Family of Bosjesmen (Bushmen), from Southern Africa.— Models of Ancient and ‘Modern Jerusalem, by firunetti.— Exhibition of Modern Paintings ; free to artists.

1849. Pictures of Recent Political Events in Paris. — The Mysterious Lady. —Figure of a Russian Itidy in veined marbles. — Bancard’s Dioramic Picture of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, 3000 miles, stated to be painted on three miles of canvas (!); sketched before the painter was of age.

1850. Panorama of Fremont’s Overland Route to California. — Bonomi’s Panorama of the Utile, 800 feet long: representing 1720 miles distance, closing with the Pyramids and Sphinx.

1852. March 15. Mr. Albert Smith first gave the narrative of his Ascent of Mont Blanc in 1851, accompanying the exhibition of cleverly-painted moving dioramic pictures of its perils and sublimities. Mr. Smith continued to give, at the Egyptian Hall, his popular representations until within a few days of his lamented death, May 23, 1860, the day before he attained the age of 44.

1860. A ” Miraculous Cabinet,” invented and produced by H. Nadolsky. This cabinet measures only 5 feet high, 3 feet wide, and 18 inches deep : it contains 150 pieces of furniture, of the same size as in ordinary use; namely, a judge’s-table, with ornaments, books, and 6 chairs; 4 card-tables, 2 Chinese-tables, a smoking-table, a lady’s work-table, 2 Chinese toilet-tables, a chess-table, 4 work-boxes5. 4 work, 4 flowerpots with flowers; a what-not, candelabrum, bed with hangings, and a swing-cot; toilet-table, embroidery-frame, flower-table, 7 Chinese lamps, 2 Chinese candlesticks, 12 fancy boxes, 1 footstool, a painter’s easel, 4 music-stands, dining-table laid with 26 covers; 4 dishes, 23 plates, 30 cups, salt-cellars, &c.; a chandelier with 12 wax-lights; 9 garden-chairs, 4 candlesticks; Chinese writing-desk, inkstand and tapers, rulers, and bell; tea-tray table, throne, throne-chair, 4 flower-tables; and a large table inlaid with shells, glass top, &c. When the various articles were taken out of the cabinet, and spread over the apartment, the notion of putting them back again into the same cabinet seemed almost absurd.

The Hall was subsequently let for various performances and exhibitions; including Mr. Arthur Sketchley’s Entertainment; Colonel Stodare’s Mystery and Magic; Mrs. Fanny Kemble’s Readings ; Madame Lind-Goldschmidt’s Concert; the Exhibition of Chang, the Chinese Giant; a Panorama of the Holy Land; Exhibition of Mr. John Leech’s Sketches; and the General Society of Painters in Water-colours. Here, in the ” Dudley Gallery,” was deposited the valuable collection of Pictures belonging to the Earl of Dudley, during the erection of his own Gallery at Dudley House, Park-lane.

ELY-PLACE.

ALL that remains of this celebrated palace, anciently Ely House, which stood on tho north side of Holborn-hill, and was the town mansion of the Bishops of Ely, is the chapel of St. Ethelreda, already described at page 161. The site is otherwise occupied by two rows of houses known as Ely-place, and a knot of tenements, streets, and alleys; but the locality is fraught with the various historic associations of five centuries. Its first occupier, Bishop John de Kirkby, dying in 1290, bequeathed a messuage and nine cottages on this spot to his successors in the see of Ely. William de Luda, the next bishop, annexed some lands, added to the residence, and in 1297 devised them to the sec, on condition that his successor should provide for the service of St. Ethelreda’s Chapel. John de Hotham, who died in 1336, planted a vineyard, kitchen-garden, orchard, &c. Thomas de Arundel, preferred to the see in 1374, re-edified the episcopal buildings and the Chapel; and erected a large gate-house towards Holborn, the stonework of which remained in Stow’s time. Ely House was in part let by the see to noblemen. Here “old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,” died Feb. 13, 1399; and Shakspeare has made it the scene of Lancaster’s last interview with Richard II. Following Hall and Holinshed, too, Shakspeare refers to this Place when Richard Duke of Gloucester, at the Council in the Tower, thus addresses the Bishop:— ” D. of Glou. My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn, I saw good strawberries in your garden there; I do beseech you send for some of them. B. of Ely. Marry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.”

Richard III., act iii. sc. 4.

At Ely House were kept divers feasts by the Serjeants-at-Law: at one, in 1495, Henry VII. was present with his queen; and at another feast in 1531, on making eleven new Serjeants, Henry VIIL and Queen Katharine were banquetted here with sumptuousness wanting ” little of a feast at a coronation;” and open-house was kept for five days. In 1576, at the mandatory request of Queen Elizabeth, Bishop Cox leased to Sir Christopher Hatton for twenty-one years the greater portion of the demesne, on payment at Midsummer-day of a red rose, ten loads of hay, and KM. per annuhem KM. pem; the Bishop reserving to himself and his successors the right of walking in the gardens, and gathering twenby bushels of roses yearly. Hatton largely improved the estate, and then petitioned the Queen to require the Bishop to make over the whole property; whereupon ensued the Bishop’s remonstrance, and Elizabeth’s undignified threat to “unfrock” him : and in 1578, the entire property being conveyed to Hatton,

Elizabeth further retaliated by keeping the see of Ely vacant for eighteen years from the death of Bishop Cox in 1591.

Aggas’s map shows the vineyard, meadow, kitchen-garden, and orchard, of Ely Place to have extended northward from Holborn-hill to the present Hatton-wall and Vine-street ; and east and west, from Saffron-hill to nearly the present Leather-lane: but except a cluster of houses (Ely Rents) on Holborn-hill, the surrounding ground was entirely open and unbuilt on; the names of Saffron-hill, Field-lane, and Lily, Turnmill, and Vine streets, carry the mind’s eye back to this suburban appropriation. The Sutherland View, 15-13, also shows the gate-house, chapel, great banquetting-hall, &c. Sir Christopher lived in great state in Hatton House, as Ely Place was now called; but Elizabeth ” which seldom gave loans, and never forgave due debts,” pressed the payment of some 4.0,0001. arrears, which the Chancellor could not meet; so it went to his heart, and he died Nov. 20, 1591. He was succeeded by his nephew, whose widow, the strange Lady Hatton, in 1598 was married to Sir Edward Coke, then Attorney-general, but who could not gain admission to Hatton House: she died ” at her house in Holbourne,” Jan. 3, 1646. The Bishops of Ely made several attempts to recover the entire property; but, during the imprisonment of Bishop Wren by the Long Parliament, most of the palatial buildings were taken down, and upon the garden were built Hatton-garden, Great and Little Kirby-streets, Charles-street, Cross-street, and Hatton-wall. During the Interrugnum, Hatton House and Offices were used as a prison and hospital. In 1772 the estate was purchased by the Crown; a town-house was built for the Bishop, No. 27, Dover-street, Piccadilly; and about 1773, the present Ely-place was built, the chapel remaining on the west side. A fragment of the episcopal residence is preserved in, and has given name to, Mitre-court, leading from Hatton-garden to Ely-place. Here, worked into the wall, as the sign of a public-house, is a mitre, sculptured in stone, with the date 1546; which probably once decorated Ely Palace, or the precinct gateway.

The stage-play of Christ’s Passion was acted in the reign of James I. “at Elie House in Holborn, when Gondomar (the Spanish ambassador), lay there on Good Friday at night, at which there were thousands present” (Prynne’s Histriomastix, p. Il7, note); this being the last performance of a Religious Mystery in England. At Ely House, also, was arranged the the grand Masque given by the four Inns of Court to Charles I. and Queen Henrietta Maria, at Whitehall, on Candlemas-day, 1634, at the cost of 21,000?.; when the masquers, horsemen, musicians, dancers, with the grand committee—including the great lawyers Whitelocke, Hyde (afterwards Lord Clarendon), and Selden—went in procession by torchlight from Ely House, down Chancery-lane, along the Strand to Whitehall.

EXCHANGES.

THE Royal Exchange, at the north-western extremity of Cornhill, is the third Exchange built nearly on the same site, for the meeting cf merchants and bankers. The first ” goodely Burse” was pEng Burse”rojected by Sir James Gresham, Lord Mayor in 1538, who submitted to Thomas Cromwell, Lord Privy-Seal, a plan taken from the Burse at Antwerp. This application failed; but the project was renewed twenty years later by Thomas Gresham, the younger son of Sir James, born in London in 1519, apprenticed to his uncle, Sir John Gresham, and admitted in 1543 to the Mercers’ Company; ia their Hall is a contemporary portrait of Sir Thomas Gresham, who was royal agent at Antwerp to Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth, and was knighted when ambassador at the court of the Duchess of Parma. Like other bankers and merchants of that day, Gresham had his shop in Lombard-street, as yet the only Exchange. The house was on the site of No. 68, the banking-house of Martin, Stone, and Co.: over the door was Gresham’s crest,* a grasshopper, as a sign, which was seen by Pennant, but disappeared by piecemeal.

* The letters of James Gresham, in the Paston Collection, are sealed with a grasshopper; sufficient refutation of a tradition accounting for the adoption of that heraldic symbol by Sir Thomas Gresham, from a grasshopper having saved his life when he was a poor famished boy, by attracting a person to the spot where he lay in a helpless condition ! Still, it were almost a pity to disturb the popular legend, teaching, as it simply does, reliance upon God’s providence.

On June G, 1566, the first stone of the Burse was laid in Cornhill, by Sir Thomas Gresham and several aldermen, each of whom ” laid a piece of gold, which the workmen picked up.” The City had previously purchased and taken down eighty houses, and prepared the site; the whole having been conveyed to Sir Thomas Gresham, who ” most frankly and lovingly” promised, that within a month after the Burse should be finished, he would present it in equal moieties to the City and the Mercers’ Company; as a pledge of which Gresham, before Alderman Bivers and other citizens, gave his hand to Sir William Garrard, and drank a carouse to his kinsmen Thomas Bowe. “How rarely do ancient documents furnish us with such a picture of ancient manners!” By November, 1567, the Burse was finished. ‘ As Flemish materials, Flemish workmen, and a Flemish architect (Henryke) had been employed, so the design closely imitated a Flemish building, the Great Burse of Antwerp. Two prints, date 1569, and probably engraved by Gresham’s order, show the exterior and interior: a quadrangle, with an arcade; a corridor, or paion* of stalls above; and in the high-pitched roof, chambers with dormer-windows. On the east side of the Cornhill entrance was a lofty bell-tower, from which, at twelve at noon and at six in the everiing, was rung a bell, the merchants’ call to ‘Change; on the north side, a Corinthian column rose twice the height of the building; and both tower and column surmounted by a grasshopper, also placed at each corner of the quadrangle. The columns of the court were marble; the upper portion was laid out in a hundred shops, the lower in walks and rooms for the merchants, with shops on the exterior. Thus there were the ” Scotch Walk,” “Hambro’,” and the “Irish,” ” East Country,” “Swedish,” “Norway,” “American,” ” Jamaica,” ” Spanish,” ” Portugal,” ” French,” ” Greek,” and ” Dutch and Jewellers’ ” walks. Long after the opening of the Burse, the shops remained ” in a manner empty;” when, upon a report that the Queen was about to visit it, Gresham prevailed upon the shopkeepers in the upper pawn to furnish their shops with ” wares and wax-lights,” on promise of ” one year rent-free.” The rent was then 40*. a shop, in two years raised to four marks, and then to M. 10s. a-year, all the shops being let. ” Then the milliners or haberdashers sold mouse-traps, bird-cages, shoeing-horns, Jews’ trumps, &c.; armourers, that sold both old and new armour; apothecaries, booksellers, goldsmiths, an, toldsmitd glass-sellers.” (Howes.) All being prepared, on Jan. 23, 1570-1, amidst the ringing of bells in every part of the City, ” the Queen’s Majesty, attended with the nobility, came from her house in the Strand called Somerset House, and entered the City by Temple Bar, through Fleet-street, Cheap, and so by the north side of the Burse, through Threadneedle-street, to Sir Thomas Gresham’s house in Bishops-gate-street, where she dined. After dinner, her Majesty returning through Cornhill, entered the Burse on the south side” (Stow) ; and having viewed the whole, especially the pawne, which was richly furnished with the finest wares, the Queen caused the Burse, by herald and trumpet, to be proclaimed ” The Royal Exchange:”—

” Proclaim through every high street of the city, This place be no longer called a Bnrse; But since the building’s stately, fair, and strange, Be it for ever called—the Royal Exchange.” Queen. Elizabeth’s Troubles, Part 2.—A Play, by Thomas Hoywood, 1609.

Sir Thomas Gresham died suddenly, Nov. 21, 1579, in the evening, on his return from the Exchange; ” being cut ofi” by untymely death, having left a part of his royall monument unperformed: that is, xxx. pictures (statues) of kings and queenes of this land; and to that purpose left thirty roomes (niches) to place them in.” It was then proposed that before any citizen should be elected alderman, he should be ” enjoyned to pay the charge of makyng and fynishing one of the forsaid kings or queenes theire pictures, to be erected in the places aforesaid in the Exchange, not exceeding 100 nobles (661. 6s. 8d.) ; the pictures to be graven on wood, covered with lead, and then gilded and paynted with oyle-cullors;” and the Court of Common Council subsequently made the erection of one such statue a part of the fine for being freed from the office

* Corrupted from bahn, German for a path or walk. There is a curious tradition, not unsupported by facts, that the framework of the Exchange was constructed upon Gresham’s estate at Rinxhall, near Battisford, Suffolk, formerly rich in wood; the remains of saw-pits are still discernible. The stone, slates, iron, wainscot, and glass, were brought from Antwerp.

of Sheriff. The building was often in danger from feather-makers, and others that kept shops in the upper pawne, using ” pannes of fyer,” which were therefore forbidden by an order of the Court of Aldermen. A print by Hollar, date 1644, shows the merchants in full ‘Change, with the picturesque costumes of the respective countries:—

” The new-come traveller, With his disguised coat and ringed ear, Trampling the Bourse’s marble twice a day.”

The statues, from Edward the Confessor to Queen Elizabeth, were thus provided: and subsequently James 1., Charles I., and Charles II, The statue of Charles I. was removed immediately after his execution, and on its pedestal was inscribed Exit tyran-norum vltimus ; which was in turn removed, and replaced with a new statue, after the Restoration. Here also, on May 28, 1661, the acts for establishing the Commonwealth were burned by the hands of the common hangman.

Gresham’s Exchange was almost entirely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666; ” when the kings fell down ellgs fellupon their faces, and the greater part of the building after them, the founders statue only remaining.” Pepys refers to ” Sir Thomas Gresham in the corner” as the only statue that was left standing. After the death of Sir Thomas Gresham, the affairs of the Royal Exchange passed under the management of the Gresham Committee, as the trustees appointed under his will, with certain members nominated by the Corporation. Thus originated the Grand or Joint Committee, under whose direction the Exchange was rebuilt after the Great Fire upon the old foundations, by Edward Jerman, one of the City Surveyors, and not by Sir Christopher Wren, as often stated; but Wren was consulted in the project of the rebuilding. Mr. Jupp, of Carpenters’ Hall, possesses two large and beautiful drawings of Jerman’s design for the building, executed in Indian ink upon vellum. Meanwhile, the merchants met ” in the gardens or walkes of Gresham College,” being the site of the great court-yard of the Excise Office ; on which a temporary Exchange was erected for a similar purpose, after the burning of the second Exchange in 1838.

Among the payments for Jerman’s buildings is one by the Committee to Sir John Denham, the poet, ” His Majestie’s Surveyor-General of his Workes, for his trouble from time to time in coming down to view the Exchange and streetes adjoining; as also in furthering theire addresses to his Majesty, and giving them full warrants for Portland stone;” the Committee therefore ordered provision to be made ” of six or eight dishes of meate att the Sun Tavern, on Wednesday next, to intertayne him withal at his comeing downe, and to present him with thirty guinney-pieces of gold, as a toaken of theire gratitude.” I

Among other entries, we find that Cains Gabriel Cibber was appointed carver; the clock was to be set np by Edward Stanton, under the direction of Dr. Hooke, having chimes with four bells, playing six tunes; William Wightman was to furnish a set of sound and tuneable bells, at 61. 5s. per cwt.; four balconies were to be made from the inner pawn into the quadrangle, at a charge of not more than 3001.; and the signs to the shops in the pawns were not to be hung forth, but set over the frieze of each shop.

The celebrated Sir Robert Viner, on March 22nd, 1668 (1669), proffered to give his Majesty’s statue on horseback, cut in white marble, to stand upon the Royal Exchange: this offer was declined, because of the “bignesse ” of the statue, which Sir Robert Viner afterwards gave to be erected over the conduit at Stocks’-market; though the royal figure was an altered John Sobieski.

The King interested himself so far in the architectural appearance cf the edifice as to desire that portions might be built on all sides of the Exchange; and hence the difficulties which arose between the Committee and the possessors of the property required; and in especial with Van Swieten, or Sweetings, as he is usually called. About seven hundred superficial feet were wanted of his ground at the east end of the Exchange, and about one thousand four hundred feet more for a street or passage; for which he declared that he expected to be paid according to the cheapest rate that any other ground should be bought at. When, however, he appeared before the sub-committee, he demanded 100W. for six hundred and twenty-seven feet, which was thought so unreasonable that they laid it aside.

On Oct. 23rd, 1667, Charles II. fixed the first pillar on the west side of the north entrance to the Exchange. ” The King was entertained by the difained bCity and Company with a chine of beef, grand dish of fowl, gammon of bacon, dried tongues, anchovies, caviare, etc., and plenty of several sorts of wine. He gave 201. in gold to the workmen. The interteynment was in a shedd built and adorned on purpose, upon the Scotch walke.” On the 31st, the Duke of York founded the corresponding pier; and on Nov. 18th, Prince Rupert fixed the pillar on the east side of the south entrance; both princes being similarly entertained.

This second Exchange was opened Sept. 28,1669; its cost, 58,962?., being defrayed in equal moieties by the City and the Mercers’ Company. It was quadrangular in plan, and had its arcades, pawn above, and statues in niches, like Gresham’s Exchange;

it had also a three-storied tower, with lantern and gilt grasshopper vane. The edifice thus remained until the extensive repairs of 1820-26 (George Smith, architect), when a stone tower, 128 feet high, was built on the south front, in place of the timber one: these repairs cost 33,000/., including 6000/. for stone staircases and floors. The Corn-hill front had a lofty archway, with four Corinthian columns; emblematic statues of the four quarters of the globe; statues of Charles I. and II. by Bushnell; statue of Gresham by E. Pierce; four busts of Queen Elizabeth; alto-relievos of Britannia, the Arts and Sciences, &c, and of Queen Elizabeth and her heralds proclaiming the original Exchange. The area within the quadrangle was paved with ” Turkey stones;” in the centre was a statue of Charles II. by Gibbons; in the arcade was a statue of Uresham by Gibber; and of Sir John Barnard, placed there in his lifetime (temp. George II.). The arcade and area were arranged, nominally, into distinct walks for the merchants.

” For half an hour he feeds: and when he’s done, In ‘s elbow-chair he takes a nap till one; From thence to ‘Change he hurries in a heat (Where knaves and fools in mighty numbers meet, And kindly mix the bubble with the cheat); There barters, buys and sells, receives and pays, And turns the pence a hundred several ways. In that great hive, where markets rise and fall, And swarms of muckworms round its pillars crawl, He, like the rest, as busy as a bee, Remains among the henpeck’d herd till three.”

Wealthy Shopkeeper, 1700.

The royal statues were, on the south side, Edward I., Edward III., Henry V., and Henry VI.; on the west, Edward IV., Edward V., Henry VII., and Henry VIII.; on the north, Edward VI., Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, James I., Charles I., Charles II., and James II.; on the east were William and Mary, in a double niche, George I., George II., and George III. These figures were in armour and Roman costume, the Queens in the dresses of their respective times; most of them were originally gilt. George III. was sculptured by Wilton, George I. and George II. by Rysbrack, and the inajor part of the others by Caius Gabriel Cibber.

Originally, the oflices in the upper floors were let as shops for rich and showy articles ; but they were forsaken in 1739 (Maitland), and the galleries were subsequently occupied by the Royal Exchange Assurance Offices, Lloyd’s Coffee-house, the Merchant Seamen’s Office, the Gresham Lecture-room, and the Lord Mayor’s Court Office : the latter a row of offices divided by glazed partitions, the name of the attorney being inscribed in large capitals upon a projecting board. The vaults beneath the Exchange were let to differ anlet to ent bankers; and the East India Company, for the stowage of pepper. Surrounding the exterior were shops, chiefly tenanted by lottery-office keepers, newspaper-offices, watch and clock makers, notaries, stock-brokers, &c. The tower contained a clock, with four dials, and chimes, and four wind-dials.

On Jan. 18th, 1838, this Exchange was entirely burnt: the fire commenced in Lloyd’s Rooms shortly after 10 p.m., and before three next morning the clock-tower alone remained, the dials indicating the exact times at which the flames reached them: north at lh. 25m.; south, 2h. 5m.: the last air, played by the chimes at 12, was, ” There’s nae luck about the house.”* The conflagration was seen twenty-four miles round London; the roar of the wind, and the rush and crackling of the flames, the falling of huge timbers, and the crash of roof and walls, were a fearful spectacle.

At the sale of the salvage, the porter’s large hand-bell, rung daily before closing the ‘Change (with the handle burnt), fetched 31. 3s.; City Griffins, 301. and 351. the pair; busts of Queen Elizabeth, 101. 15*. and 181. tbe pair; figures of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, 110?.; the statue of—Anne, \0l. 5s. ; George II., 91. 5s.; George III. and Elizabeth, 111. 15s. each; Charles II., 91.; and the sixteen other royal statues similar sums. The copper-gilt grasshopper vane was reserved.

Mr. Scott, the Chamberlain of London, states, that if, from the Great Fire in 1666, when the first Eoyal Exchange was destroyed, down to 1838, when it was a second time destroyed by fire, a sum equivalent to the fire-insurance rate of is. per cent, and 3s. duty had been annually raised and allowed to accumulate, it would have been sufficient to defray forty-seven aud a half times over the cost of 200.000J. for rebuilding the Exchange as it now exists.

After an interval of nearly tour years, the rebuilding of the Exchange was com-

* The chimes played at 3,6,9, and 12 o’clock—on Sunday, the 104th Psalm; Monday,” God save the King;” Tuesday, ” Waterloo March ;” Wednesday, ” There’s nae luck about the house;” Thursdayi ” See the conquering hero comes;” Friday, ” Life let us cherish;” Saturday, ” Foot-Guards’ March.”

menced from the designs of William Tite, F.R.S.; the site being enlarged by the removal of Bank-buildings, west of the old Exchange, and the buildings eastward, nearly to Finch-lane. In excavating for the foundations was found a deep pit full of remains of Roman London, specimens of which are preserved in the Museum at Guildhall. (See CoENniLL, p. 291.) Mr. Tite thinks it probable that ” this pit had been sunk during the earliest times of the Roman occupation of London, for the mere purpose of obtaining the gravel, required perhaps for making a causeway or road across the banks of the adjoining marshy stream of the Wall-Brook. When the excavation had served this purpose, it remained for years (perhaps centuries), forming a dirty pond to receive the refuse and rubbish of all the neighbourhood, and in this way it must have been gradually filled up; at the time of building the Roman wall the accumulation was firm enough again to receive a bed of gravel, slightly concreted, laid on the top of the mud, so as to be covered up and become apparently solid ground. The builders of the Old Exchange, however, found out its deficiency, and supported their work on piles, which had evidently yielded.” The foundation-stone of 29tion-st the new Exchange was laid by Prince Albert, on Monday, Jan. 17th, 1842, in the mayoralty of Alderman Pirie; the circumstances being recorded in a Latin and English inscription upon a zinc plate, placed in the foundation-stone. The Exchange was completed within the short space of three years, for somewhat less than the architect’s estimate, 137,600/.; or, including the sculpture, architect’s commission, &c, 150,0002.

The new Exchange was formally opened by her Majesty, Oct. 28,1844, when the Royal and Civic Processions joined within Temple Bar; the Aldermen in gowns and chains, and the Lord Mayor in a crimson velvet robe, collar, and jewel, on horseback; his Lordship bearing immediately before the Queen’s state-carriage the great pearl sword presented to the City of London by Queen Elizabeth on her opening the first Exchange. The procession of 1844 was altogether the most magnificent pageant of the present reign. At the Exchange, an address was presented to the Queen, followed by a breakfast, distribution of commemorative medals, and a procession to the centre of the quadrangle, where the Queen, surrounded by her Ministers and the City authorities, said: ” It is my Royal will and pleasure that this building be hereafter called ‘ The Eoyal Exchange.'” The event was commemorated with great civic festivity; and the Lord Mayor, Magnay, received a patent of baronetcy.

The Royal Exchange, first opened for business Jan. 1, 1845, stands nearly due east and west; extreme length, 308 feet; west width, 119 feet; east, 175 feet. The foundation is concrete, in parts 18 feet thick; and the walls and piers are tied together by arches, the piers strengthened by beds of wrought-iron hooping. The foundation of Gresham’s Exchange, as just stated, was laid upon piles. The architecture is florid, and even exuberant, characteristic of commercial opulence and civic state. The leading idea of the plan is from the Pantheon at Rome: material, finest Portland stone.

The West front has a portico ” very superior in dimensions to any in Great Britain, and not inferior to any in the world.” It is 96 feet wide and 74 high, and has eight columns (the architect’s Composite), 4 feet 2 inches in diameter and 41 feet high, with two intercolumniations in actual projection, and the centre also deeply recessed; the interior of the portico is strikingly magnificent, in the vastness of the columns, and the beauty of the roof of three arches, enriched after a Roman palace. Flanking the central doorway are two Venetian windows, with the architect’s monogram, W. T., beneath.

On the frieze of the portico is inscribed: anno xiii. biizabeth.e b. cohditvm. anno viii. victobia e. bestavbatvm. Over the central doorway are the Royal arms, by Carew. The key-stone has the mer-ihant’s mark of Gresham; and the key-stones of the side arches, the arms of the merchant adventurers of his day, and the staple of Calais. North and south of the portico, and in the attic, are the City sword and mace, with the date of Queen Elizabeth’s reign and 1844; and in the lower panels, mantles bearing the initials of Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria respectively: the imperial crown is 12 inches in relief, and 7 feet high. The tympanum of the pediment of the portico is filled with sculpture, by Richard Westmacott, R.A.; consisting of 17 figures, carved in limestone, nearly all entire and detached. The centre figure is Commerce, with her mural crown, 10 feet high, upon two dolphins and a shell; she holds the charter of the Exchange: on her right is a group of three British merchants, as lord mayor, alderman, and common-councilman; a Hindoo and a Mahommedan, a -ihahommedGreek bearing a jar, and a Turkish merchant: on the left are two British merchants and a Persian, a Chinese, a Levant sailor, a negro, a British sailor, and a supercargo: the opposite angles are filled with anchors, jars, packages, &c. Upon the pedestal of Commerce is this inscription: ” The Eabth is the Lobd’s, and the fulness thebeof.” —Psalm xxiv. 1. The ascent to the portico is by thirteen granite steps.

The East front has four composite columns, which support the tower, in the first story of which is a statue of Sir Thomas Gresham, 14 feet 6 inches high, by Behnes; above are the clock-faces; and next a circular story, with Composite columns and a

dome carved in leaves, surmounted by the original grasshopper vane, of copper gilt, 11 feet long; height of tower and vane, 177 feet. Beneath the tower is the great eastern entrance to an oblong open area, where are the entrances to Lloyd’s Rooms and the Merchants’ Area.

The Clock was manufactured by Mr. Dent in 1843, and has since been pronounced by the Astronomer Royal to be tbe best public clock in the world; the pendulum, which weighs nearly 4 ewt., is compensated, and the first stroke of the hour is true to a second. This clock has Mr. Airey’s construction of the going-fuzee introduced, by which the winding is effected without stopping the motion. This clock is a great improvement on that placed in this building in Sir Thomas Gresham’s days, respecting which it was reported, in 1621, that ” the Exchange clocke was pr’sented for not being kept well, it standing in one of the most eminent places in the Cittie, and being the worst kept of any clock in that Cittie.”

The Chimes consist of a set of fifteen bells, by Mears, cost 5001.; the largest being also the hour-bell of the clock. In the chime-work, by Dent, there are two hammers to several of the bells, so as to play rapid passages; and three and five hammers strike different bells simultaneously. All irregularity of force is avoided by driving the chime-barrel through wheels and pinions; there are no wheels between the weight that pulls and the hammer to be raised; the lifts on the chime-barrel are all epicy-eloidal curves; and there are 6000 holes pierced upon the barrel for the lifts, so as to allow the tunes to be varied: the present airs are, “God save the Queen,” “The Roast Beef of Old England,” “Rule Britannia,” and the 104th Psalm. The bells, in substance, form, dimensions, &c, are Irom the Bow-bells patterns; still, they are thought to be too large for the tower.

The South front has a line of pilasters, upon ground-floor rusticated arches; the three middle spaces deeply recessed, and having richly-embellished windows, a cornice, balustrade and attic. Above the three centre arches are the Gresham, City, and Mercers’ Company arms, which are repeated on the east front entablature.

The North front has a projecting centre, and otherwise differs from the south: in niches are statues of Sir Hugh Myddelton, by Joseph; and Sir Richard Whittington, by Carew. Over the centre arch is Gresham’s motto, Fortun a my; on the dexter, the City motto, Dne. dirige nos ; and on the sinister, the Mercers’ Company, Honor Deo.

The principal or First floor has four suites of apartments :—1. Lloyd’s, east and north ; 2. Royal Exchange Assurance, west; 3. London AssurahlyLondon nce Corporation, south; 4. Offices originally intended for Gresham College, south and west.

The Ground-floor externally, as in the two former Exchanges, is occupied by shops and offices, each having a mezzanine and basement.

The Interior consists of the open Merchants’ Area, resembling the corlile of an Italian palace; its form, as that of the building, is parallelogram, and the inner area exactly a double square. The ground-floor is a Doric colonnade, and rusticated arches; the upper floor has Ionic columns, with arches and windows, and an enriched parapet, pierced. The key-stones of the upper arches are sculptured with national arms, in the order determined at the Congress of Vienna. At the north-east angle is a statue of Elizabeth, by Watson; at the south-east, Gibbons’s marble statue of Charles II., formerly in the centre of the old Exchange, nearly upon the spot where is now a marble statue of Queen Victoria, by Lough: the sovereigns in whose reigns the three Exchanges were built.

The encaustic decorations of the Ambulatories having become obscured, the plaster-work was removed in 1859-60, and replaced by fresco-painting, designed by Sang, executed by Beensen, of Munich. Above the west and principal entrance, are placed the Gresham arms; those of Sir Thomas Gresham, the founder of the institution, in combination with the arms of the Mercers’ Company, to which he belonged; together with the City arms. On the panel of the ceiling immediately within this entrance are the Royal arms. To the right are the national arms of Sweden and Norway; and proceeding round by the right, next are the following national and distinguished arms, emblazoned on the various panels in the order:—Prussia, the East Indies, Australia, Brazil, America, Portugal, Naples, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, Austria, Holland; followed by those of Brandenburg, Hamburg, and Lubeck, conjoined with and succeeded by those of Hanover, Bavaria, Scotland, Ireland, Denmark, Schleswig-Holstcin, China, Turkey, and Russia. On the upper corners of the panels crests of various members of the Gresham committee, under whose direction the building is maintained, have been placed; their names will be found recorded on a granite slab which occupies the south-west corner of the building. The ceiling panels are interspersed with the Gresham, the Mercers’, and the City arms, together with the mottoes of the two latter, ” Honor Deo ” and ” Domine dirige nos,” in numerous designs and combinations ; while above the statues of Elizabeth and Charles II. the Royal arms are again conspicuous. The different Walks of the Merchants and their peculiar trades are in these new decorations much more readilv recognisable by the coats of arms of the respective countries, and each particular trade is represented according to the ancient custom resorted to by the frequenters of the Royal Exchange. The temporary decorations had little or no reference to this important question, but now the coats of arms form the chief ornaments ol the large arched panels of the walls, the borders of which are filled with a rich Raphaelesque margin upon a purple ground, intersected with emblematic medallions, the main or central leading colour being an aerial and sunny yellow of the most cheerful hue.

” Here are the same old-favoured spots, changed though they be in appearance; and notwithstanding we have lost the great Rothschild, Jeremiah Harman, Daniel Hardcastle (the Page No. 1 of the Timet), the younger Rothschilds occupy a pillar on the south side of the Exchange, much in the same place as their father; and the Barings, the Bateses, the Salomons, the Doxats, the Durroraats, thants, the Crawshays, the Curries, and the Wilsons, and other influential merchants, still come and go, as in olden days.”— (City, 2nd edit.) Many sea-captains and brokers still go on ‘Change; but the ” Walks ” arc disregarded. The hour of High ‘Change is from \ past 3 to \ past I p.m., the two great days being Tuesday and Friday for foreign exchanges.

Lloyd’s Subscription Hooms are approached by a fine Italian staircase; the stairs are each a single block of Cragleith granite, 14 feet long. In the vestibule is a marble statue of Prince Albert, by Lough ; a marble statue, by Gibson, R.A., of the late Mr. Huskisson, presented by his widow; a mural testimonial to the Times’ exposure of a fraudulent conspiracy in 1851; and a monument to John Lydekker, Esq., who bequeathed 58.000J. to the Seamen’s Hospital Society : it has figures of disabled seamen, and a scene from the Southern Whale Fishery.

Lloyd’s is the rendezvous of the most eminent merchants, shipowners, underwriters, insurance, stock, and exchange brokers, &c. Here is obtained the earliest news of the arrival and sailing of vessels, losses at sea, captures, re-captures, engagements, and other shipping intelligence; and the proprietors of ships and freights are insured by the underwriters.

Lloyd’s originated with a coffee-house keeper of that name, at the corner of Ab-church-lane, Lombard-street:—

” To Lloyd’s CofTee-house, he never fails To read the letters and attend the sales.”— Wealthy ShopTceeper,l700.

In 1710, Steele dates from Lloyd’s (Tatler, No. 246) his Petition on Coffee-house Orators and Newsvenders; and Addison, in Spectator, April 23, 1711, speaks of the auction pulpit at Lloyd’s: but the auction business was transferred to Garraway’s Coffee-house. Lloyd’s was subsequently removed to Pope’s Head-alley, and in 1774 to the north-west corner of the Royal Exchange, where it remained until the fire in 1838; the subscribers then met at the South-Sea House, till they returned to their present location in the new Exchange. The rooms are in the Venetian style, with Roman enrichments. They are:—1. The Subscribers’ or Underwriters’, the Merchants’, and the Captains’ Room. The Subscribers’ Boom is 100 feet long by 48 feet wide, and is opened at 10 o’clock and closed at 5 : annual subscription, four guineas; if an underwriter or insurance-broker, he pays also an entrance-fee of twenty-five guineas; admissions and questions determined by ballot, each underwriter having his own seat. At the entrance of the room are exhibited the Shipping Lists, received from Lloyd’s agents at home and abroad, and affording particulars of departures or arrivals of vessels, wrecks, salvage, or sale of property saved, &c. To the right and left are ” Lloyd’s Books,” two enormous ledgers: right hand, ships ” spoken with,” or arrived at their destined ports; left hand, records of wrecks, fires, or severe collisions, written in a fine Roman hand, in ” double lines.” To assist the underwriters in their calculations, at the end of the room is an Anemometer, which registers the state of the wind day and night; attached is a rain-gauge.

On the roof of the Exchange is a sort of mast, at the top of which is a fan, like that of a windmill, the object of which is to keep a plate of metal with its face presented to the wind. Attached to this plate are springs, which, joined to a rod, descend into the Underwriters’ Room upon a large sheet of paper saheet of placed against the wall. To this end of the rod a lead-pencil is attached, which slowly traverses the paper horizontally, by means of clock-work. When the wind blows very hard against the plate outside, the spring, being pressed, pushes down the rod, and the pencil makes a long line down the paper vertically, which denotes a high wind. At the bottom of the sheet, another pencil moves, guided by a vane on the outside, which so directs its course horizontally that the direction of the wind is shown. The sheet of paper is divided into squares, numbered with the hours of night and day; and the clockwork so moves the pencils, that they take exactly an hour to traverse each square: hence the strength and direction of the wind at any hour of the twenty-four are easily seen.

The subscribers number about 1900; and, with the underwriters, represent the greater part of the mercantile wealth of the country. (See City, 2nd edit, pp, 108 to 122.) Above the Subscribers’ Room is the Chart-room, where hangs an extensive collection of maps and charts.

The Merchants’ Room is superintended by a master, who can speak several languages : here are duplicate copies of the books in the underwriters’ room, and files of English and foreign newspapers.

The Captains’ Room is a kind of coffee-room, where merchants and ship-owners meet captains, and sales of ships, &c. take place.

The members of Lloyd’s have ever been distinguished by their loyalty and benevolent spirit. In 1802, they voted 2000?. to the Life-boat subscription. On July 20, 1803, at the invasion panic, they commenced the Patriotic Fund witli 20,000?. 3 per cent, consols; besides 70,312?. 7s. individual subscriptions, and 15,000?. additional donations. After the battle of the Nile, in 1798, they collected for the widows and wounded seamen 32,423?.; and after Lord Howe’s victory, June 1, 1794, for similar purposes, 21,281?. They have also contributed 5000?. to the London Hospital; 1000?. for the suffering inhabitants of Russia in 1813; 1000?. for the relief of the militia in our North American colonies, 1813; and 10,000?. for the Waterloo subscription, in 1815. The Committee vote medals and rewards to those who distinguish themselves in saving life from shipwreck.

Lloyd’s Register of British and Foreign Shipping, No. 2, White-lion-court, Corn-hill, was originally established in 1760, and re-established in 1834, and gives the class and standing of vessels, date of building and where built, materials, &c, ascertained by careful surveys; but is a distinct body from Lloyd’s Subscription Rooms.

The entrance-gates in each front of the Exchange are fine specimens of iron-casting, bronzed. The western or principal gates, cast by Grissell, are 22\ feet high, 11 feet 4 inches wide. The design is Elizabethan: on the flanks and around the semicircle, are the shields of the twelve great City companies; in the crown of the arch, Gresham’s arms, and beneath is his bust, upon a mural crown, backed by the civic mace and sword; on the panels are the arms of Elizabeth and Victoria.

The cost of enlarging the site, including improvements and widening of Cornhill, Freeman’s-court, Broad-street, and removal of the church of St. Benet Fink, the French Protestant Church, Bank-buildings, Sweeting’s-alley, &c, was 223,578?”. Is. lOd. — Cit, “s. lOd.y Chamberlain’s Return, October 30, 1851.

” Sir Thomas Gresham left the Exchange during the life of his widow to her use; and at her death, he left his mansion in Threadneedle-street, since occupied by the Excise Office, for a college, to be called Gresham College, as a London University, the funds for its support being provided by the rents of the shops and pawns of the Exchange. By the Great Fire, this source of income was entirely cut off; and not only so, but the two Corporations of the City of London and the Mercers’ Company incurred a debt of nearly 60,000?. in rebuilding the Exchange. They, notwithstanding, out of their own resources continued the College until the year 1745, when the debt amounted to 111,000?. In 1763, the College was put an end to by an Act of Parliament, and the site let to the Commissioners of Excise. The Gresham Professors were always continued, and gave their lectures in a room in the Exchange up to the fire of 1838. The Gresham Committee have, from their own funds, rebuilt Gresham College, in Gresham-street, at an expense of upwards of 15,000?.: and the debt incurred by the two Corporations, in maintaining the Exchange and rebuilding it twice, in maintaining the Gresham Professors, and some almshouses founded also by Sir Thomas Gresham, amounts now to considerably more than 200,000?.”— W. Tite, F.R.S.

A large medal, by Wyon, R.A., bears on the obverse Lough’s statue of the Queen in profile; on the reverse is a bust in high relief of Gresham, in the cap and starched frill of his period.

In the neighbourhood of the Exchange are the finest architectural objects in the City. Westward is the Bank of England, an elaborately-enriched pile, very picturesque in parts; and beyond it are the palatial edifices of the Alliance and Sun Insurance Offices. Southward is the Mansion House, in effect a massive Italian palace. Northward is Royal Kxchange-buildings, an enriched specimen of street architecture. Before the Exchange portico is an equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington (the last work modelled by Chantrey), placed here by the citizens in gratitude for the Government grant of 1,000,000?. for improvements in their ancient City. From this spot radiate Moorgate and Prince’s-streets; the former with Italian palazzo offices, less showy but of far better architectural character than Regent-street ; and King William-street, highly embellished, but more interesting as leading to London-bridge, which contests with another structure across the same stream the distinction of ” the finest bridge in the world.”

Coal Exchange. —Three hundred years ago, when the use of coal instead of wood had only just commenced in the metropolis, two or three ships were enough for the supply. A charter of Edward II. shows Derbyshire coal to have been then used in London, though a proclamation of Edward I. shows its introduction as a substitute for wood to have been much opposed; and in the reign of Elizabeth, the burning of stone-coal was prohibited during the sitting of Parliament, lest it should affect the health of the members. An Exchange for the trade in the new fuel was early established.

The ” Coal Exchange,” up to 1807, was in the hands of private individuals; in that year it was purchased by the Coi-poration for 25,600/. In 1845, the coal-trade petitioned for the enlargement and rebuilding of the Exchange. This was done by the City architect, J. B. Bunning; and the new Exchange was opened with great iclat, by Prince Albert, accompanied by the Prince of Wales and the Princess Rre he Prinoyal, Oct. 29,

1849; when the Lord Mayor (Duke), himself a coal-merchant, received a patent of baronetcy. The Exchange has two principal fronts of Portland stone, in the Italian style,—one in Lower Thames-street, and the other in St. Mary-at-Hill; with an entrance at the corner by a semicircular portico, with Roman-Doric columns, and a tower 106 feet high, within which is the principal staircase. The public hall, or area for the merchants, is a rotunda 60 feet in diameter, covered by a glazed dome, 74 feet from the floor. This circular hall has three tiers of projecting galleries running round it; the stancheons, galleries, ribs of dome, &c. are iron, of which about 300 tons are used. The floor of the rotunda is composed of 4000 pieces of inlaid woods, in the form of a mariner’s compass, within a border of Greek fret: in the centre are the City shield, anchor, &c.; the dagger-blade in the arms being a piece of a mulberry-tree planted by Peter the Great, when he is stated to have worked as a shipwright in Deptford Dockyard.

The entrance vestibule is richly embellished with vases of fruit, arabesque foliage, terminal figures, &c. In the rotunda, between the Raphaelesque scroll supports, are panels painted with impersonations of the coal-bearing rivers of England: the Thames, Mersey, Severn, Trent, Humber, Aire, Tyne, &c.: and above them, within flower-borders, are figures of Wisdom, Fortitude, Vigilance, Temperance, Perseverance, Watchfulness, Justice, and Faith. The arabesques in the first story are views of coalmines : Wallsend, Percy Pit-Main, Regent’s Pit, &c. The second and third story panels are painted with miners at work: and the twenty-four ovals at the springing of the dome have upon a turquoise-blue ground figures of fossil plants found in coal-formations. The minor ornamentation is flowers, shells, snakes, lizards, and other reptiles, and nautical subjects. The whole is in polychrome, by Sang. The gallery-fronts and other iron-work are cable pattern. The cost of the enlarged site, the building, and approaches, was 91,167Z. 11*. 8d.

In a basement on the east side of the Exchange are the remains of a Roman bath, in excellent preservation, discovered in excavating the foundations of the new building; there is a convenient access to this interesting relic of Roman London.

Cobn Exchange (the), Mark-lane, was established in 1747, when the present system of factorage commenced. It consists of an open Doric colonnade, within which the factors have their stands; it resembles the atrium, or place of audience, in a Pompeian house; with its impluvium, the place in the centre in which the rain fell. ( W. H. Leeds.) In 1827-8, adjoining was built a second Corn Exchange (G. Smith, architect) : it has a central Grecian-Doric portico, surmounted by the imperial arms and agricultural emblems; the ends have corresponding pilasters. Here lightermen and granary-keepers have stands, as well as corn-merchants, factors and millers; the ceed market is in another part of the building.

” This is the only metropolitan market for corn, grain, and seeds. The m&rket-days are Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; hours, ten to three. Wheat is paid for in bills at one month, and other corn and grain in bills at two months. The Kentish ‘ hoymen,’ distinguishable by their sailor’s jackets, have stands free of expense, and pay less for metage and dues than others; and the Essex dealers enjoy some privileges : in both eases said to be in consideration of the men of Kent and Essex havintrnd Esseng continued to supply the City when it was ravaged by the Plague.”—Knight’s London, vol. iii. p. 365.

King’s Exchange (the), ” for the receipt of bullion to be coined,” was in Old Exchange, now Old ‘Change, Cheapside.

” It was here that one of those ancient officers, known as the King’s Exchanger, was placed; whose duty it was to attend to the supply of the Mints with bullion, to distribute the new coinage, and to regulate the exchange of foreign coin. Of these officers there were anciently three: two in London, at the Tower and Old Exchange, and one in the City of Canterbury. Subsequently, another was appointed with an establishment in Lombard-street, the ancieni rendezvous of the merchants; and it appears not improbable that Queen Elizabeth’s intention was to have removed this functionary to what was preeminently designated bv her ‘ the Eoyal Exchange,’ and hence the reason for the change of the name of this edifice by Elizabeth.”— W. Tite, FJi.S.

No. 36, Old ‘Change was formerly the ” Three Morrice-Dancers ” public-house, with the three figures sculptured on a stone as the sign and an ornament, (temp. James I.) : the house was taken down about 1801: there is an etching of this very characteristic sign-stone.

New Exchange, en the south side of the Strand, was built by the Earl of Salisbury on the site of the stables of Durham House, and was opened by James I. and his

queen, who named it ” the Bursse of Britain.” It was erected partly on the plan of the Royal Exchange, with vaults beneath, over which was an open paved arcade; and above were walks of shops occupied by perfumers and publishers, milliners and sempstresses:

” The sempstress speeds to ‘Change with red-tipt nose.”—Gay’s Trivia, b. li. 1. 337. When, at the Restoration, Covent Garden rose to be a fashionable quarter, the New Exchange became very popular. It is a favourite scene with the dramatists of the reign of Charles II., and was the great resort of the gallants of that day. At the “Three Spanish Gipsies,” in the New Exchange, lived Anne Clarges, married to Thomas Ratford, who there sold wash-balls, powder, gloves, &c, and she taught girls plain work. Anne became sempstress to Colonel Monk, and used to carry him linen: ” she was a woman,” says Lord Clarendon, ” of the lowest extraction, without either wit or beauty;” but who contrived to captivate Monk, “old George,” and was married to him at St. George’s Church, Southwark, in 1652, it is believed while her first husband was living. ” She became the laughing-stock of the court, and gave general disgust.” (Pepys, iii. 75.) She died Duchess of Albemarle, leaving a son, Christopher, who succeeded to the Dukedom; he is said to have been ” suckled by Honour Mills, who sold apples, herbs, oysters, &c.” At the Revolution, in 1688, there sat in the New Exchange, as a sempstress, Francis Jennings, the reduced Duchess of Tyrconnel, wife to Richard Talbot, lord-deputy of Ireland under James II.: she supported herself for a few days (till she was known, and otherwise provided for) by the little trade of this place: to avoid detection, she sat in a white mask and a white dress, and was therefore known as ” the white widow.”* Another romantic story is told of the place. In November, 1653, a quarrel having arisen in the public walk of the Exchange between M. Gerard (at that time engaged in a plot against Cromwell) and Don Pantaloon Sa (brother to the Portuguee g the Pose ambassador); the latter next day came to the Exchange, accompanied by assassins, who mistaking another person, then walking with his sister and mistress, for M. Gerard, seized upon him, and stabbed him to death with their poniards. For this crime Don Pantaleon was condemned to death; and, by a strange coincidence, he suffered on the same scaffold with M. Gerard, whose plot had been discovered.

The Exchange latterly became famous for its exhibitions of waxwork, and for a magnificent stock of English and foreign china kept for sale; but by the intrigues, assignations, and indecent licenses of the fops with the milliners, the place lost its character, was little resorted to after the death of Queen Anne, and in 1737 was taken down, and the site covered with houses; the name is retained in Exchange-court.

In the Strand, exactly opposite Ivy Bridge (a short distance east of the New Exchange site), Thomas Parr, the ” olde olde man,” had lodgings, when he came to London to be shewn as a curiosity to Charles I. The authority for this fact is a Mr. Greening, who in the year 1814, being then about 90 years of age, mentioned it to the author, saying that he perfectly well remembered, when a boy, having been shown the house by his grandfather, then 88 years of age. The house, which stood at the commencement of the present century, had been known for more than 50 years as the ” Queen’s Head” public-house.—Smith’s Streets of London, edit. 1849, p. 145.

Stock Exchange, the heart of ” the Bank for the whole world ” {Rothschild), is in Capel-court, Bartholomew-lane, facing the eastern front of the Bank of England. The speculators in stock, who greatly increased with the National Debt, hitherto met at Jonathan’s Coffee-house, Change-alley; then at a room in Threadneedle-street, admission 6d. ; and bargains in stocks were next made in the Bank rotunda. In 1801, the present building was commenced by subscription (James Peacock, architect), in Capel-court, the site of the offices and residence of Sir William Capel, lord mayor in 1501. The inscription placed beneath the foundation-stone states, “at this era the public funded debt had accumulated in five successive reigns to 552,730,9242.;” adding propitiatorily, ” the inviolate faith of the British nation, and the principles of the constitution, sanction and secure the property embarked in this undertaking. May the blessing of that constitution be secured to the latest posterity !” The building was opened March, 1802; and in 1822 the business in the foreign funds was removed here from the Boyal Exchange.

The Stock Exchange was considerably enlarged in 1854, at the expense of 20,0002.

* This anecdote was ingeniously dramatised by Mr. Douglas Jerrold; and produced at Covent-garden Theatre, in 1840, as ” The White Milliner.”

The fabric belongs to a private Company, consisting of 400 shareholders; and the shares were originally of 501. each, but are now of uncertain amount. The affairs of this Company are conducted, under a deed of settlement, by nine ” managers,” elected for life by the shareholders. The members or subscribers, however, entirely conduct their own affairs by a Committee of thirty of their own body. There are three branches, or houses: the English, for stocks and Exchequer-bills ; the Foreign, for stocks; and the tiailway or Share-market, a market for mining shares being added in 1850. Lists are daily published of the pricehis of thes of stocks and shares, and twice a week of bullion and foreign exchanges. The members give security to the Stock Exchange Committee, partly as a guarantee of their own individual respectability, and partly of their good faith. In some cases they give sureties to the amount of 9001., and in others of 5002. or 6001. ; the smaller amount being required of brokers who have for some time before been recognised clerks of members of the Stock Exchange; but in all cases, the time during which such security lasts is limited to two years. The money received in the event of defalcation by a broker from his sureties goes solely to the members of the Stock Exchange; and the bonds given to the Stock Exchange are required for the protection of that body only, and not for the public. Each member, as well as the Committee, has to meet the probation of re-election every Lady-day. A bankrupt ceases to be a member, and cannot be re-adinitted unless he pays 6s. 8d. in the pound beyond that collected from his debtors. The names of defaulters are posted on the ” black board,” and they are termed ” lame ducks ;” this rule was established in 1787, when twenty-five ” lame ducks waddled out of the Alley.” To avoid a libel, the notice runs thus: ” Any person transacting business with A. B. is requested to communicate with C. D.” Only members are allowed to transact business at the Stock Exchange, as notified at each entrance; and strangers who stray in are quickly hustled out: but a view of the Exchange can be obtained through the glass-doors in the entrance from Hercules-court. The brokers usually deal with the jobbers; and among the Exchange cries are, “Borrow money ?” ” What are Exchequer?”” Five with me,” “Ten with me,” making up a strange Babel. “A thousand pounds’consols at 96f-964.” (“Take’em at 96|,” is the vociferous reply of a buyer:) “Mexican at 27^-27; Portuguese fours at 32^-32$; Spanish fives at 21; Dutch two-and-a-halfs at 50j-50J :” and so on till the hour for closing strikes. Railway companies and bankers often lend large sums, and bankers are sometimes borrowers, as are also the Bank of England and were the East India Company. The fluctuations in the rate of interest enjoin ” watching the turn of the market;” for, on the same day, money has been lent at 4 per cent, in the morning, and at 2 o’clock could scarcely be borrowed at 10 per cent.

The Stock Exchange has had its vocabulary of terms for than a century—traceable to the early transactions in the stock of the East India Company.

A Bull is one who speculates for a rise; whereas a Bear is he who speculates for a fall. The Bull would, for instance, buy 100,0002. consols for the account, with the object of selling them again during the intervening time at a higher price. The Bear, on the contrary, would sell the 100,0002. stock (which, however, he docs not possess) for the same time, with the view “of buying in and balancing the transaction at a lower price than that at which he originally sold them. If consols fall, the Bull finds himself on the wrong side of the hedge; and if they rise, the poor Bear is compelled to buy in his stock at a sacrifice.— The City, 2nd edit.

Certain of the legitimate dealers and brokers, originally formed themselves into a Stock Exchange, on the principle of admitting only those who could give assurance of their respecta ility, and of dismissing summarily any of their own body who should be guilty of irregularity. On the whole, the scheme has worked greatly to the public advantage, and has rendered the London Money-market the resort of all the world. Notwithstanding the transactions are so enormous, the amounts so large, and the confidence reposed so unlimited, the instances of delinquency in the members are surprisingly few. If isinglyNevertheless, the reminiscences of the “Alley,” together with the equivocal conduct of the ” stags ” who haunt its purlieus, still attach, though unjustly, to the Stock Exchange itself. The benevolence and charity of the members are well known: in any sudden calamity, the Stock Exchange men are always amongst the first to succour the afflicted. There is, moreover, a fund subscribed by the members for their decayed associates, the invested capital of which, exclusive of annual contributions, amounts to upwards of 50,0002.— The Builder.

The Stock Exchange has many startling episodes of fraud and panic, rise and ruin-Speculation often produces permanent benefit to the public: to the fever of 1807 and 1808, London owes Vauxhall and Waterloo Bridges. Late in Napoleon’s career the funds varied 8 and 10 per cent, within an hour; but the immediate effect of the battle of Waterloo news on the funds was only 3 per cent.: the decrease of the public expenditure was two millions per month. At the panic of 1825, which more affected the public funds than did the news of Napoleon’s escape from Elba, the extrance to the Stock Exchange became so choked up, that a fine of 51. was imposed upon each person who stopped the way. Pigeon-expresses for the earliest intelligence were chiefly worked from May to September; the birds generally used were the Antwerp breed, strong on the wing, and fully feathered : they are, however, superseded by the electric telegraph and the cable. Exchequer-bills let in fraud the year after their creation. The last fraud in Exchequer-bills was that committed by Beaumont Smith, chief clerk in the Audit Office, and the victim of llapallo, an Italian jobber.

Political hoaxes, from the reported death of Queen Anne to the fraud of 1814, in which Lord Cochrane was implicated, chequer the Stock-Exchange chronicles; and victims flit about its gates—from the Goldsmids, whose credit was whispered away by envy, to the poor Miss Whitehead, whose wits were turned to melancholy by the forgeries of her brother. The recollection of large loans raised here reminds one of

the mighty power which reigns supreme on this very spot, once the most opulent part of Roman London.

” The warlike power of every country depends on their Three-per-Cents. If Caesar were to re-appear on earth, Wettenhall’s List would be more important than his Commentaries; Rothschild would open and shut the Temple of Janus; Thomas Baring, or Bates, would probably command the Tenth Legion; and the soldiers would march to battle with loud cries of ‘ Scrip and Omnium reduced!’ ‘ Consols and Ca?sar !'”— Rev. Sydney Smith.

The most remarkable man among the stockbrokers of our time was the late Mr. Francis Baily, F.R.S., the astronomer, who retired from the Stock Exchange, in 1825. In 183S, in the garden of his house, Tavistock-place, Russell-square, was constructed a small observatory, wherein Mr. Baily repeated the ” Cavendish experiment,” the Government having granted 50M. towards the expense of the apparatus, tea. This is the building in which the earth was weighed, and its bulk and figure calculated; the standard measure of the British nation perpetuated, and the pendulum experiments rescued from their chief source of inaccuracy. Mr. Baily died President of the Astronomical Society, in 1844.

The Stock Exchange, as rebuilt by Allason, architect, 1853, stands in the centre of the blot rre of tck of buildings fronting Bartholomew-lane, Threadneedle-street, Old Broad-street, and Throgmorton-street. The principal entrance is from Bartholomew-lane, through Capel-court: there are also three entrances from Throgmorton-street and one from Threadneedle-street. The area of the new house is about 75 squares, and it would contain 1100 or 1200 members: there are, however, seldom more than half that number present. The site is very irregular, and has enforced some peculiar construction in covering it, into which iron enters largely. For the cupola, laminated ribs are used. The vault which covers the centre of the building, 39 feet in span, is of timber and iron. The whole of this, together with the dome, &c., is covered with lead to the extent of about 80 tons. The vitiated air is got rid of by an extracting-chamber on the apex of the dome, heated by a sunburner with 500 jets: during the day the sun-burner is concealed from view by a perforated sliding metal screen; but, when required, sufficient illuminating power is to be obtained by withdrawing the screen, to light up the house without further burners.— The Builder.

EXCHANGE-ALLEY.

EXCHANGE-ALLEY now ‘Change-alley, between No. 24, Cornhill, and No. 70, Lombard-street, is described by Strype as ” a place of a very considerable concourse of merchants, seafaring men, and other traders, occasioned by the great coffee-houses that stand there. Chiefly now brokers, and such as deal in the buying and selling of stocks, frequent it.” Thither Jews and Gentiles migrated in 1700: for a century it was the focus of all the monetary operations of England, and in great part of Europe; and even to this hour, the Stock Exchange bears the generic designation of ” the Alley.” It was the great arena of the South-Sea Bubble of 1720. In a print called the ” Bubblers’ Melody ” are ” stock-jobbing cards, or the humours of ‘Change-alley.”

” The headlong fool that wants to be a swopper Of gold and silver coin for English copper, May in ‘Change-alley prove himself an ass, And give rich metal for adulterate brass.”

Nine of Heart), in a Pack of Bubble Cards.

I7fi6 was a South-Sea year in East India stock, when patriots were made or marred

by jobbing : ” from the Alley to the House,” said Walpole, ” is like a path of ants.”

” The centre of the jobbing is in the kingdom of Exchange-alley and its adjacencies. The limits are easily surrounded in about a minute and a half, viz., stepping out of Jonathan’s into the Alley, you turn your face full south; moving on a few paces, and then turning due east, you advance to Garraway’s ; from thence, going out at the other door, you (jo on still east into Birchin-lane; and then halting a little at the Sword-blade Bank, to do much mischief in fewest words, you immediately face to the north, enter Cornhill, visit two or three petty provinces there in your way west; and thus having boxed your compass, and sailed round the whole stock-jobbing globe, you turn into Jonathan’s again ; and so, as most of the great follies of life oblige us to do, you end just where you began.”— The Anatomy of Exchange-alley, 1719.

EXCISE OFFICE (THE),

OLD Broad-street (Dance, sen., architect), occupies the site of Gresham College, which the Gresham trustees sold, in 1768, to the Crown for a perpetual rent of &001. per annum; when 18.000Z. was also paid out of the Gresham fund to the Commissioners towards pulling down the College, and building an Excise Office ! (Burgon.) The business was removed in 1848 to the Inland Revenue Office, Somerset House. In

the court-yard of the Broad-street Excise Office a temporary Exchange was put up for the merchants in 1838; and was used during the rebuilding of the Royal Exchange. (See Gresham College, p. 274.)

The Excise system was established by the Long Parliament, in 1643, to raise funds for the war against the King! The Commissioners first sat in Haberdashers’ Hall, and then at their office in Smithfield, which was taken down in 1647, the mob carrying off the materials in triumph. In 1 680, the office was at Cockaigne House, formerly the mansion of Eliah, the brother of Dr. William Harvey, the illustrator of the Circulation of the Blood. Thence the Excise Office was removed to Sir John Frederick’s mansion, Old Jewry; and then to Old Broad-street.

EXETER HALL,

NO. 372, on the north side of the Strand, a large proprietary establishment, was commenced in 1829 (Gandy Deering, architect), and was originally intended for religious and charitable Societies, and their meetings. It has a narrow frontage in the Strand, but the premises extend in the rear nearly from Burleigh-street to Exeter-street. The Strand entrance is Grseco-Corinthian, and has two columns and pilasters, and the word <£IAAAEA$EION (Loving Brothers) sculptured in the attic. A double staircase leads to the Great Hall, beneath which are a smaller one, and passages leading to the offices of several Societies.

The Great Hall, opened in 1831, is now used for the ” May Meetings” of religious societies, and for the Sacred Harmonic Society’s and other concerts. This Hall has been twice enlarged, is now 131 ft. 6 in. long, 76 ft. 9 in. wide, and 45 ft. high, and will accommodate upwards of 3000 persons. At the east end is an organ and orchestra, the property of the Sacred Harmonic Society; at the west end is a large gallery, extending partly along the sides; and on the floor are seats rising in part amphitheatrically; also a platform for the speakers, and a large carved chair. In 1850, the area of the hall was lengthened nearly forty feet; the flat-panelled ceiling was also removed, and a coved one inserted, without disturbing the slating in the roof; S. W. Daukes, architect. Nearly eighty tons of iron were introduced into the roof, which, with the new ceiling, is one-third less weight than the original roof.

Thus the ceiling gained 15 feet in height at the ends, and 12 feet in the centre; and the sound and ventilation are much improved. The Orchestra is on the acoustic principle successfully adopted by Mr. Costa at the Philharmonic Society; it is 76 feet wide, 11 feet more than the Birmingham Town-Hall orchestra. Every member can see the conductor; the organ-player sees his baton in a glass, among the phalanx of instrumentalists. The works of Handel, Haydn, and Mozart are here given with mighty effect ; and Spohr and Mendelssohn have here conducted their own productions. The Organ, built by Walker in 1840, is 30 feet wide and 40 feet high: it has 2187 pipes; the longest are 20 thengest afeet from the base, diameter 15 inches, weight of each 4 cwt.; in gilding one-half of each pipe 750 leaves of gold were used : there are three rows of keys and two octaves of pedals.

From April to the end of May, various Societies hold their anniversary meetings at Exeter Hall. The smaller hall holds about 1000 persons, and a third hall 250, Haydon has painted the Meeting of Anti-Slavery Delegates in the Great Hall, June 12, 1840, under the presidency of the venerable Thomas Clarkson, then in his 81st year. On June 1, 1840, Prince Albert presided in the Great Hall at the first public meeting of the Society for the Extinction of the Slave Trade, this being the Prince’s first appearance at any public meeting in England.

Exeter Hall, with its various religious and benevolent aggregations, is one field with many encampments of distinct tribes. ” Wesleyan, Church, Baptist missionary societies, all maintain a certain degree of reserve towards each other, all are jealous of the claims of rival sects, and yet all are attracted by a common sense of religious earnestness. The independent and often mutually repelling bodies who congregate in Exeter Hall are ne in spirit, with all their differences. Without a pervading organization, they are a church.”— Spectator newspaper.

Mr. Hullah’s system of popular Singing was formerly illustrated here, when 2000 pupils combined their voices in the performances.

EXETER HOUSE AND EXETER ‘CHANGE.

EXETER ‘CHANGE is now only kept in remembrance by a clock-dial, inscribed with its name in place of figures, upon the attic-front of the house No. 353, eastward of the ‘Change site, on the north side of the Strand. Here was formerly the parsonage-house of the parish of St. Martin, with a garden, and a close for the parson’s horse; till Sir Thomas Palmer (temp. Edward VI.) obtained it by composition, and began to build here ” a magnificent house of brick and timber” (Stow). But upon his attainder for high treason (1 Queen Mary), the property reverted to the Crown, and so remained until Queen Elizabeth presented it to Sir William Cecil, lord treasurer, and the great Lord Burleigh (properly Burghley), who completed the mansion, with four square turrets; whence it was called Cecil House and Burleigh House, and afterwards Exeter House, from the son of the great statesman Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter. The mansion fronted the Strand, and extended from the garden-wall of Wimbledon House (on the site of D’Oyley’s warehouse) to a green lane, the site of the present Southampton-street, westward. Queen Elizabeth visited Lord Burleigh at Exeter House; and here his obsequies were celebrated by a lying-in-state.* In the chapel attached, the pious John Evelyn, on Christmas-day, 1657, was seized by the soldiers of the Commonwealth for having observed ” the superstitious time of the Nativity,” and was temporarily shut up in Exeter House. Here lived the first Earl of Shaftesbury, and here was born his grandson, who wrote the Characteristics. After the Great Fire, the courts of Doctors’ Commons were held in Exeter House until 1672.

Exeter ‘Change was built, as a sort of bazaar, by Dr. Barbon, the speculator in houses, temp. William and Mary, when Exeter House was taken down ; and probably some of the old materials were used for the ‘Change, including a pair of large Corinthian columns at the eastern end. (See a View, by G. Cooke.) About the same time, Exeter-street waste.er-stre erected. The ‘Change extended from the house No. 352 to the site of the present Burleigh-street: it projected into the Strand, the northern foot-thoroughfare of which lay through the shops or stands of the lower floor, first occupied by senrpsters, milliners, hosiers, &c.

The body of the poet Gay lay in state in an upper room of the ‘Change; here, too, were upholsterers’ shops, the offices of Law’s Land Bank, auction-rooms, &c. Cutlery then became the merchandise of the lower floor.

Thomas Clark, “the King of Exeter ‘Change,” took a stall here in 1765 with 1001. lent him by a stranger. By parsimony and trade, he grew so rich that he once returned his income at 6000Z. a year; and long before his death, in 1816, he had rented the whole ground-floor of the ‘Change. He left nearly half a million of money, and one of his daughters married Mr. Hamlet, the celebrated jeweller.

The upper rooms of Exeter ‘Change were occupied as a menagerie successively by Pidcock, Polito, and Cross; admission to Pidcock’s, in 1810, 2*. 6d. The roar of the lions and tigers could be distinctly heard in the street, and often frightened horses in the roadway. During Cross’ tenancy, in 1826, Chunee, the stupendous elephant shown here since 1809, in an oak den which cost 350Z., was shot, and his skin sold for 50Z.; his skeleton, sold for 100Z., is now at the College of Surgeons. (See Museums.) Cross’ Menagerie was removed in 1828 to the Kings’ Mews, Charing-cross; and Exeter ‘Change was entirely taken down in 1829.

New Exeter Change, an Arcade which led from Catherine-street to Wellington-street, Strand, is described at page 20.

FETTER-LANE,

FLEET-STREET, eastward of St. Dunstan’s Church, extending to Holborn-hill, “is so called of fewters (or idle people) lying there, as in a way leading to gardens” (Stow) before the street was built; but when he wrote “it was built through on both sides with many fair bouses.” Here lived the leatherseller of the Revolution, ” Praise God Barebones,” and his brother, “Damned Barebones,” both in the same house.

* Burghley died at Theobalds, Aug. 4,1598, where the body lay. Hentzer, however, states that when he called to see Theobalds at Cheshunt, there was ” nobody to shew the palace, as the family was in town attending the funeral of their lord.”

Hobbes of Malmesbury bad a bouse in this street. In No. 16, over Fleur-de-lis-court, Dryden is said to have lived; but not by his biographers. His name does not appear in the parish books; but he may have been a lodger. ” This period in Dryden’s life may have been about the time when he wrote prefaces and other pieces for Hering-ham, the bookseller in the New Exchange, or soon after.”— J. W. Archer, whose impression was that the authority consisted in a letter of Dryden’s, dated from Fetter-lane, and in Mr. Upcott’s collection of autographs. At the right-hand corner of Fleur-de-lis-court, the infamous Mrs. Brownrigg murdered her apprentices in 1767; the cellar-grating, whence the poor child’s cries issued, is on the side of the court:—

” She whipped two female ‘prentices to death,

And hid them in the coal-hole

For this act, Did Brownrigg swing.”—Canning, AnVjacolin.

On the Rolls estate, nearly opposite, was commenced a new Record Office, by Penne-thorne, in 1851. No. 32, Fetter-lane is the entrance to the Moravian Chapel, which was attacked and dismantled in the Sacheverel riots. (See Dissenters’ Chapels, p. 220.) The Fleet-street and Holborn ends of Fetter-lane were, for more than two centuries, places of public execution. At the Holborn end, Nathaniel Tomkins was executed, July 5, 1643, for his share in Waller’s plot to surprise the City. At the Fleet-street end Sarah Malcolm was executed, March 1733, for the murder of three women. (See Mr. Serjeant Burke’s Romance of the Forum, vol. i. pp. 224-38.) Hogarth painted and engraved Sarah Malcolm: the print, for which the Duke of Roxburghe gave 8Z. 5s., is the rarest of Hogarth’s portraits: this impression is now in Mr. Holbert Wilson’s collection.

” Immediately after Sarah Malcolm underwent the extreme penalty of the law, a confession made by her was published in a pamphlet form; the edition was exhausted at once, and as much as twenty guineas is said to have been offered for an impression.”— Romance of the Forum, 2nd series, vol. i. p. 237.

” After her execution her corpse was carried to an undertaker’s on Snow-hill, where multitudes of people resorted, and gave money to see it; among the rest, a gentleman in deep mourning kissed her, and gave the attendants half-a-crown.”— Ireland, vol. ii. p. 320. Quoted in Mr. Holbert Wilson’s Catalogue, privately printed.

Fetter-lane has still a few old houses: towards the Holborn end are some of the oldest chambers of Barnard’s Inn. Strange labyrinths of courts and alleys lie between Chancery, Fetter, and Shoe lanes, which, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, intersected gardens and straggling cottages. This district was the principal part of Saxon London, and was nearly all burnt a.d. 982, when the City had ” most buildings from Ludgate towards Westminster, and little or none where the heart of the City now is j except in divers places was housing that stood without order.” (Stow.)

The White Horse Inn, Fetter-lane (now a cheap lodging-house), was formerly the great Oxford house: here Lord Eldon, when he left school and came to London, in 1776, met his brother, Lord Stowell. ” He took me,” says Lord Eldon, ” to see the play at Drury-lane. Love played Jobton in the farce; and Miss Pope played Nell. When we came out of the house it rained hard. There were then few hackney-coaches, and we both got into one sedan-chair. Turning out of Fleet-street into Fetter-lane, there was a sort of contest between our chairman and some persons who were coming up Fleet-street, whether they should first pass Fleet-street, or we in our chair first get out of Fleet-street into Fetter-lane. In the struggle, the sedan-chair was overset, with us in it.”—Lord Eldon’s Anecdote-Book.

FIELD-LANE,

AN infamous rookery of ” the dangerous classes,” extended from the foot of Holborn-hill, northward, parallel with the Fleet Ditch, but has been mostly taken down since it was thus vivi wewas thudly painted in 1837 :—

“Near to the spot on which Snow-hill and Holborn meet, there opens, upon the right hand as you come out of the City, a narrow and dismal alley leading to Saffron-hill. In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of pocket-handkerchiefs of all sizes and patterns—for here reside the traders who purchase them from pickpockets. Hundreds of these handkerchiefs hang dangling from pegs outside the windows, or flaunting from the door-posts; and the shelves within are piled with them. Confined as the limits of Field-lane are, it has its barber, its coffee-shop, its beer-shop, and its fried-fish warehouse. It is a commercial colony of itself—the emporium of petty larceny, visited, at early morning and setting-in of dusk, by silent merchants, who traffic in dark back-parlours, and go as strangely as they come. Here the clothesman, the shoe-vamper, and the rag-merchant, display their goods as signboards to the petty thief; and stores of old iron and bones, and heaps of mildewy fragments of woollen-stuff and linen, rust and rot in the grimy cellars.”— Charles Dickens’s Oliver Twist, 1837.

From Field-lane, northward, runs Saffron-hill, named from the saffron which it once

bore ; next is Vine-street, the site of Ely-house vineyard. Strype (1720) describes this locality as “of small account both as to buildings and inhabitants, and pestered with small and ordinary alleys and courts, taken up by the meaner sort of people;” others are ” nasty and inconsiderable.”

In 1844 was taken down part of Old Chick-lane, which debouched into Field-lane. Here was a notorious thieves’ lodging-house, formerly the Red-Lion Tavern: it had various contrivances for concealment; and the Fleet Ditch in the rear, across which the pursued often escaped by a plank into the opposite knot of courts and alleys.

FIELD OF FORTY FOOTSTEPS.

THE fields behind Montague House, Bloomsbury, appear to have been originally called Long Fields; and afterwards (about Strype’s time) Southampton Fields. On St. John Baptist’s Day, 1694, Aubrey saw at midnight twenty-three young women in the pasture behind Montague House, looking for a coal, beneath the root of a plantain, to put under their heads that night, and they should dream who would be their husbands. The fields were the resort of depraved wretches, chiefly for fighting pitched battles, especially on the Sabbath-day: such was the turbulent state of the place up to 1800.

A legendary story of the period of the Duke of Monmouth’s Rebellion relates a mortal conflict here between two brothers, on account of a lady, who sat by: the combatants fought so ferociously as to destroy each other ; after which their footsteps, imprinted on the ground in the vengeful struggle, were said to remain, with the indentations produced by their advancing and receding; nor would any grass or vegetation ever grow over these forty footsteps. Miss Porter and her sister, upon this fiction, founded their ingenious romance, Coming Out, or the Field of Forty Footsteps ; but they eutirely depart from the local tradition. At the Tottenham-street Theatre was produced, many years since, an effective melodrama, by Messrs. Mayhew, founded upon the same incident, entitled the Field of Forty Footsteps.

“, “Booqua”, Palatino, “Times New Roman”, serif”> Southey records this strange story in his Commonplace Book (second series, p. 21). After quoting a letter from a friend, recommending him to ” take a view of those wonderful marks of the Lord’s hatred to duelling, called The Brothers’ Steps,” and describing the locality, Southey thus narrates his own visit to the spot: ” We sought for near half an hour in vain. We could find no steps at all within a quarter of a mile, no, nor half a mile, of Montague House. We were almost out of hope, when an honest man, who was at work, directed us to the next ground, adjoining to a pond. There we found what we sought, about three-quarters of a mile north of Montague House, and 500 yards east of Tottenham-court-road. The steps are of the size of a large human foot, about three inches deep, and lie nearly from north-east to south-west. We counted only seventy-six; but we were not exact in counting. The place where one or both the brothers are supposed to have fallen is still bare of grass. The labourer also showed us where (the tradition is) the wretched woman sat to see the combat.” Southey adds his full confidence in the tradition of the indestructibility of the steps, even after ploughing up, and of the conclusions to be drawn from the circumstance.— Notes and Queries, No. 12.

Joseph Moser, in one of his Commonplace Books, gives this account of the footsteps, just previous to their being built over: ” June 16, 1800. Went into the fields at the back of Montague House, and there saw, for the last time, the forty footsteps ; the building materials are there, ready to cover them from the sight of man. I counted more than forty, but they might be the footprints of the workmen.”—Dobie’s St. Giles-in-the-Fields and St. George, Bloomsbury; and Dr. Rimbault, in Notes and Queries, No. 14.

FINSBURY,

OR Fenshury, named from its fenny ground, is a manor of high antiquity, which abuts in part upon the City, Cripplegate, and Moorgate boundaries, and was anciently named Vynesbury. A great part of the manor is held by the Corporation of London, by virtue of a lease dated 22nd May, 1315, from Robert de Baildok, prebendary of Haliwell and Finsbury, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, at an annual rent of 20*. The lease, which has been renewed from time to time, will expire in the year 1867. The Corporation appoints the steward and other officers of the manorial courts; but the manor is not within the jurisdiction of the City. The Finsbury court leet and baron are holden in October every year, before the senior Common Pleader, to whose office the stewardship of the manor of Finsbury is incident. {Municipal Corporation Report, pp. 3, 136; and Maitland’s London, vol. ii. 1369.) Finsbury has been drained and built over, and is now a populous parliamentary borough, including the ancient district of Moorfields, to be described hereafter.

In early times, the chief magistrate of London was no more than a provost. Afterwards, the title of Mayor—that is, Major Chief—was given to him; hut in all the olden chronicles and documents he is simply called by that name, without the prefix of Lord. When the manor of Finsbury was annexed to the City property, and the mere marsh was turned into a place of general recreation, he was, in virtue of his office, Lord of the Manor of Finsbury. Hence, in process of time, the compound title of Lord Mayor: Mayor, that is, of Loudon, and Lord oporn, and f the Manor of Finsbury.

Aggas’s Plan, 1560, shows Finsbury as a rural suburb; with ” Finsburie Fyeld,” with its four windmills; its archers; drying-grounds, with women spreading clothes on the grass; the ” dogge-house,” &c. ” Moor-gate opens to the moor, or fen—hence the district name Fin, or Fensbury, and that of the near-to-hand Moor-lane. Fore-street appears before the City wall. The City-road is a footpath, near the junction of which with Old-street, another footpath, stands Finsbury-court. Tenter-street still attests the presence of the’ tenters,’ whose frames in Aggas’s Plan are sketched on the site which is now so styled; thus also do Ropemaker and Skinner-streets indicate old trades of suburban custom. Cherry-terrace, Crabtree-row, Willow-walk and Wilderness, Windmill, Lamb, Pear, Rose, Primrose, Acorn, Ivy, Elder, Blossom, Orchard, and Beech-streets, all in the neighbourhood, suggest odours and sights that have long left the spot. Tabernacle, Chapel, Worship, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Paradise, Quaker, Providence, and Cheat PearL-Btreets hint at later occupants.”— Athenaeum, 1866.

In the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I. (says Cunningham), Finsbury was a favourite walk with the citizens of London on a Sunday: hence Hotspur’s allusion to Lady Percy:—

” And giv*st such sarcenet security for thy oaths, As if you never walk’st further than Finsbury.”

Shakspeare, First Part of Henry TV.

The Prebend of Finsbury now (1866) has revenues of 7000£. per annum; they will shortly be eight or nine times that amount. (See Bunhill Fields, p. 76.) The City’s proportion of the net proceeds of the Finsbury Estate is, annually, 42,977J.

FIRE OF LONDON (THE),

OR the Great Fiee of 1666, broke out about one o’clock on Sunday morning, September 2, and raged nearly four days and nights. It commenced at the house of one Farryner, the ” King’s Baker,” in Pudding-lane, near New Fish-street-hill, and within ten houses of Lower Thames-street, into which it spread within a short time; nearly all the contiguous buildings being of lath and plaster, and the whole neighbourhood mostly close passages and narrow lanes and alleys, of wooden pitched houses. Driven by a strong east-north-east wind, the flames spread with great rapidity : however, it was proposed to the Lord Mayor (Sir Thomas Bludworth), who came before three o’clock, to pull down some houses, to prevent their extending; but he neglected this advice, and before eight o’clock the fire had reached London Bridge.

The tremendous event is finely described by Evelyn in his Diary, wherein he tells us that it made the atmosphere as light as day ” for ten miles round about; . . all the skie was of a fiery aspect, like the top of a burning oven, the light seen above forty miles round about. Above 10,000 houses all in one flame; the noise and cracking and thunder of the impetuous flames, y e shrieking of women and children, the hurry of people, the fall of towers, houses, and churches, was like an hideous storme, and the air all about so hot and inflam’d, that at last one was not able to approach it, so that they were forc’d to stand still and let y e flames burn on, w ch they did for neere two miles in length, and one; in bre end one;edth. The clouds of smoke were dismall, and reached upon computation necr 50 miles in length.”

On the 5th, Evelyn writes: ” In this calamitous condition, I return’d with a sad heart to my house, blessing and adoring the mercy of God to me and mine, who, in the midst of all this mine, was like Lot, in my little Zoar, safe and sound.”

Pepys’s account, in his Diary, is fully as minute as that of Evelyn, but is mingled with various personal and official circumstances. Pepys was then clerk of the Acts

of the Navy: his house and office were in Seething-lane, Crutched Friars; he was called up at three in the morning, Sept. 2, hy his maid Jane, and so rose and slipped on his nightgown, and went to her window; but thought the fire far enough off, and so went to bed again, and to sleep. Next morning, Jane told him that she heard above 300 houses had been burnt down by the fire they saw, and that it was then burning down all Fish-street, by London Bridge. ” So,” he writes, ” I made myself ready presently, and walked to the Tower, and there got up upon one of the high places, and saw the houses at that end of the bridge all on fire, and an infinite great fire on this and the other side of the bridge,” &c. On Sept. 5, he notes: ” about two in the morning my wife calls me up, and tells me of new cries of fire, it being come to Barking Church, which is at the bottom of our Lane.” The fire was, however, stopped, ” as well at Mark-lane end as ours; it having only burnt the dyall of Barking Church, and part of the porch, and there was quenched.”

The limits of the Great Fire, according’ to the London Gazette, Sept. 8,1666, were: “at the Temple Church, near Holhorn Bridge, Pye Corner, Aldersgate, Cripplegate, near the lower end of Coleman-street, at the end of Basinghall-street, by the Postern; at the upper end of Bishopsgate-street and Leadenhall-street, at the Standard in Cornhill, at the Church in Fenchurch-street, near Clothworkers* Hall, in Mincing-lane, at the middle of Mark-lane, and at the Tower Dock.”

” It is observed and is true, in the late Fire of London, that the Fire burned just as many parish churches as there were hours from the beginning to the end of the Fire; and next, that there were just as many churches left standing in the rest of the City that was not burned, being, I think, thirteen in all of each; winch is pretty to observe.”—Pepys’ Diary, Jan. 7,1667-8.

The Fire consumed almost five-sixths of the whole City; and without the walls, it cleared a space nearly as extensive as the one-sixth part left unburnt within. Public edifices, churches, and dwelling-houses were alike consumed; and it may be stated that the flames extended their ravages over a space of ground equal to an oblong square of a mile and a half in length, and half a mile in breadth. In one of the inscriptions on the Monument, which was drawn up from the reports of the surveyors appointed after the Fire, it is stated that ” the ruins of the City were 436 acres (viz. 373 acres within the walls, and 63 without them, but within the liberties) ; that of the six-and-twenty wards, it utterly destroyed fifteen, and left eight others shattered and half burnt; and that it consumed eighty-nine churches, four of the City gates, Guildhall, many public structures, hospitals, schools, libraries, a great number of stately edifices, 13,200 dwelling-houses, and 460 streets.

Lord Clarendon says, that “the value or estimate of what that devouring Fire consumed could never be computed in any degree.” A curious pamphlet upon the Burning of London, first published in 1667, however, estimates the loss at 7,335,000£.; but it is believed to have been nearer ten millions sterling.

Whether the Great Fire were the effect of design or of accident, has been much controverted. Lord Clarendon admits the public impression to have been, ” that the Fire was occasioned by conspiracy and combination;” and although he himself maintains the negative, his own account furnishes opposite testimony. ” It could not be conceived,” he says, ” how a house that was distant a mile from any part of the Fire could suddenly be in a flame, without some particular malice; and this case fell out every night.” One Bobert Hubert, a French Papist, seized in Essex, confessed to have begun the Fire; and was hanged accordingly : he stated that he had been, ” suborned at Paris to this action;” that there ” were three more combined with him to do the same thing,” and that ” he had set the first house on fire.” Yet Lord Clarendon strangely remarks, that ” neither the judges, nor any present at the trial, did believe him guilty, but that he was a poor distracted wretch weary of his life, and chose to part with it in this way.” This was not credited by Howell, then recorder of London. ” Tillotson believed the City was burnt on design.” {Burnet.)

On the 26th of April, 1666, a plot was discovered for taking the Tower and firing the City, which was to have been put in execution on the 3rd of September, a day regarded as peculiarly lucky to the anti-royalist faction. It is worthy of remark that the ” Great Fire of London ” broke out on the 2nd of September in that year, the very day before that appointed by the conspirators.

An extremely impressive narrative of the progress of the conflagration, and of the distress and confusion it occasioned, has been given by the Rev. T. Vincent, a nonconformist divine, in his tract, God’s Terrible Advice to the City by Plague and Fire, of which thirteen editions were published within five years.

The stationers and booksellers lost their stocks, which they had deposited in St. Paul’s crypt: too eager to ascertain its condition, as the fire subsided, they caused an aperture to be made in the smouldering pile, when a stream of wind rushed in and consumed the whole:—

“Heavens, what a pile! whole ages perish’d there; And one bright blaze turn’d learning into air.”

Aubrey relates that on St. Andrew’s Day (Nov. 30), 1666, as he was riding in a coach towards Gres-ham College, at the corner of Holborn Bridge, a cellar of coals was opened by the labourers, and ” there were burning coals which burnt ever since the Great Fire; but being pent so close from air, there was very little waste.”— Nat. Hist. Witts.

Westminster Hall was filled thl was fwith the citizens’ goods and merchandize; and Pepys oddly complains that he could not ” find any place in Westminster to buy a shirt or pair of gloves; Westminster Hall being full of people’s goods.”

A Court of Judicature was appointed by Parliament, to settle all differences arising in respect to the destroyed premises : and the judges of this Court gave such satisfaction, that their portraits were painted, at the expense of the citizens, for 60Z. a piece, and are now in the Courts of Common Pleas and Queen’s Bench, Guildhall.

Not more than six persons lost their lives in the Fire; one of whom was a watchmaker, living in Shoe-lane, behind the Globe Tavern, and who would not leave his house, which sunk him with the ruins into the cellar, where his bones, with his keys, were found.

(See Hollar’s small view of London before and after the Fire j and an ingenious picture-plan by F. Whishaw, C.E., showing the part of the City destroyed, and its altered condition in 1839.)

Whilst the City was rebuilding, temporary edifices were raised, both for divine worship and the general business. Gresham College, which had escaped the flames, was converted into an Exchange and Guildhall; and the Royal Society removed its sittings to Arundel House. The affairs of the Custom-house were transacted in Mark-lane ; of the Excise Office in Southampton-fields, near Bedford House ; the General Post-Office was removed to Brydges-street, Covent-garden; Doctors’ Commons to Exeter House, Strand; and the King’s Wardrobe was consigned from Puddle Wharf to York-buildings. The inhabitants, for a time, were mostly lodged in small huts, built in Finsbury and Moorfields, in- Smithfield, and on all the open spaces in the neighbourhood of the metropolis. The whole calamity was bravely borne : Evelyn mentions that the merchants complied with their foreign correspondence as if no disaster had happened, and not one failure was heard of. Within two days after the conflagration, both Wren and Evelyn had presented to the King plans for a new City: neither of these was accepted; but London was principally rebuilt within little more than four years after its destruction.— (See Monument, the.)

MEMORABLE FIRES.

Southwark burnt by William the Conqueror, about twenty years before the Domesday Survey.

962.—St. Paul’s Minster burnt.

1036.—All the houses and churches from the west to the east gate burnt.— (Baker’s Chronicle.)

1087.—The Winchester Chronicle makes entry of the burning of the Church of St. Paul’s and of London. The Waverley Chronicle says that St. Paul’s, with many other churches, and the greater and better part of the whole City, were then destroyed by Are.

1093.—The wooden houses and straw roofs of the Loudon citizens again in flames, and great part of the City destroyed.

1102.—”London was twice burnt,”aphrase which shows how quickly the City could then be rebuilt, and thaousuilt, at the houses must have been made of very combustible materials.

1104.—London and Lincoln were burnt.

1113.—The Tower of London partially destroyed by fire.

1131.—” Londonia tota combusta est”—London entirely burnt.

1133.—The first year of Stephen. A great fire broke out at the Bridge, and destroyed not only all the wooden and thatched houses, but every

edifice, including St. Paul’s, between the bridge and St. Clement Danes.

1136.—The houses burnt from near London-stone eastward as far as Aldgate; and to the shrine of St. Erkenwald, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, west.

1161.—By the Winchester Chronicle, not only London burnt, but Winchester, Canterbury, and Exeter.

1212.—July 10. Southwark, with the Chapel of St. Thomas (on London Bridge) and the Priory of St. Mary Overie, was consumed. The Wacerley Chronicle says:—” A great part of London in the neighbourhood of the Bridge, with the Southwark Priory, was burnt down.” Three thousand bodies, some half-burnt, were found in the river Thames: besides those who perished altogether by fire. ” It broke out on the south side of the Bridge. Multitudes of people rushed to the rescue of the inhabitants of houses on the bridge, and while thus engaged the fire broke out on the north side also, and hemmed them in, making a holocaust of those who were not killed by leaping into the Thames. The fire spread north and south; from John’s reign to that of Charles the Second it was known as the Great Fire, but that name is now only

FIRE BRIGADES.

341

applied to the conflagration of 1666, which extended from the north-east gate to Holborn-bridge, and from the Tower to the Temple Church, leaving between four and five hundred acres covered with ruins of many thousands of houses to mark its devastation.”— Athenaum, 1866.

1512.—Great part of the Palace of Westminster “once again” burnt (4 Hen. VIII.), and not since re-edified; only the Great Hall, with adjoining offices, kept in good repair.

1531.—Aug. 16. ~ burnt.

1613.—June 29 burnt.

1619—Jan. 12

The Mews, Charing Cross, The Globe Theatre, Bankside,

The old Banqueting-house, Whitehall Palace, burnt.

162at , serif1.—Dec. 9. The Fortune Theatre burnt. Dec. 20. Six Clerks’ Office, Chancerv-lane, burnt.

1691—April 10. At Whitehall Palace all the buildings over the stone gallery to the water-side burnt; 150 houses, chiefly of the nobility, consumed, and 20 blown up.

1697.—Jan. 4. Whitehall Palace, except Inigo Jones’s Banqueting-house, burnt; all its pictures destroyed, and 12 persons perished.

1632-33.—Feb. 3. More than one-third of the houses on London Bridge burnt; the Thames almost frozen.

1666.—The Great Fihe. (See preceding article.)

1671-2.—The King’s Theatre, Drury-lane, burnt.

1676.—May 26. The Town-hall and part of Southwark (600 houses) burnt.

1718.—Custom-house (Wren’3) burnt.

1726.—Great fire at the South-end of London Bridge; stopped by the Stone Gate.

1743.—March 25. In Cornhill ward: 200 houses burnt; commenced in ‘Change-alley, and was the largest siuce the Great Fire of 1666. (See Cobn-hill, p. 235.)

1758.—April 11. The temporary wooden London Bridge destroyed by fire, stopping all communication between the City and Southwark. This produced the Act of Parliament making any wilful attempt to destroy the Bridge or its works to be death without benefit o£ clergy.

1760.—April 18. Fresh Wharf and part of St. Magnus’ Church, London Bridge, burnt.

1765.—NOT. 7. The southern half of Bishops-gate-street Within, including St. Martin Outwich Church, destroyed by fire; the four corners of Cornhill, Bishopsgate-street, Leadenhall-street, and Graeechurch-street, were inflames at the same time.

1789.—June 17. Italian Opera-house (Van-brugh’s) burnt.

1794.—June 18. At Limehouse Hole, manv houses burnt. July 22, 23. At Ratcliffe Cross ; 630 houses and an East India warehouse burnt: loss, 1,000,0002.

1808.—Sept. 20. Covent-garden Theatre burnt.

1809.—Feb. 24. Drury-lane Theatre burnt.

1814.—Feb. 12. The Custom-house and adjoining houses destroyed. Aug. 28. Oil and mustard mills, Bankside, burnt; remains of Winchester Palace discovered in the ruins.

1834.—Oct. 16. Both Houses of Parliament destroyed by a fire which was not extinguished several days: libraries and state papers preserved. In 182Inderved. 8, Sir John Soane, noticing the great quantity of timber used in the House of Lords, prophetically asked: ” Should a fire happen, what would become of the Painted Chamber, the House of Commons, and Westminster Hall ? Where would the progress of the fire be arrested ?” The latter was saved by the favourable direction of the wind; for had the flames and flakes of fire from the two Houses been wafted towards the vast timber roof of the Hall, it must have been inevitably destroyed. Among the strange stories in support of the fire being the work of political incendiaries, is the statement of Mr. Cooper, an ironmonger, of Drury-lane, that he heard at Dudley, in Worcestershire (119 miles from London), a report of the conflagration about three hours after it broke out.

1838.—Jan. 10. The Boyal Exchange burnt within five hours; with a great amount of property, documents of corporations, &c.

1841.—Oct. 30. Conflagration in the Tower; the great storehouse, with 280,000 stand of arms, and the Bowyer and Butler Towers, burnt.

1843.—Aug. 17. Great fire at Topping’s Wharf, London Bridge: Watson’s telegraph tower and St. Olave’s Church burnt.

1849.—March 29. The Olympic Theatre and a dozen other buildings burnt in three hours. Oct. 6. Extensive fire at London-wall; Carpenters’ Hall injured: loss, 100,0002.

1850.—March 29. St. Anne’s Church, Limehouse, destroyed. Sept. 19. Great fire in Mark-lane and Seething-lane; loss, 100,0002. In the ruins was discovered a tablet, inscribed: ” This was rebuilt in 1792. The foundation, or ‘base courts,’ are the remains of the original palace where the City standard of weights and measures were formerly kept, and designated, in Saxon phraseology,’ Assay Thing Court,’ the entrance to which was in, as is now called,’ Seething-lane.'”

1861.—June 22. Conflagration in Tooley-street, London Bridge; property destroyed half a million.

FIRE BRIGADE.

THE early precautions for the prevention of Fires in the metropolis were remarkahle. A householder, within the liberty of the City, who dared to cover his house with thatch, was sure to see his dwelling razed to the ground by the authorities. From the time of the Fire in Stephen’s reign, it was forbidden to bakers to light their oven-fires at night (brewers were under similar stringent regulations) with reeds or loose straw; nothing but wood was legal. Lead, tile, or stones, were alone permitted in Edward the Third’s time for roofing.

In the first year of Richard I., the Wardmotes ordered:—” Item, that all persons who dwell in great houses within the ward have a ladder or two ready and prepared to succour their neighbours in case misadventure should occur from fire. Item, that all persons who occupy such houses, have in summer-time, and especially between the Feast of Pentecost and the Feast of St. Bartholomew (August 24th), before their doors a barrel full of water for quenching such fire, if it be not a house which has a fountain of its own. Item, that the reputable men of the ward, with the aldermen, provide a strong crook of iron, with a wooden handle, together with two chains and two st wons and rong cords, and that the bedel have a good horn and loudly sounding. Of persons wander-

ing by night, it is forbidden that any person shall be so dareing as to be found wandering about the streets of the City after the curfew rung out at St. Martin’s-le-Grand, St. Laurance, or at Berkyngchirch, upon pain of being arrested.”

The earliest mechanical contrivance for the extinction of fires in London appears to have been a syringe or squirt, numbers of which were kept by the parochial authorities. In the vestry-room of St. Dionis, Back-church, Fenchurch-street, are preserved three of these squirts : each is about 2 feet 3 inches long, and when used was attached by straps to the body of a man : others were worked by three men, two holding the squirt by the handles and nozzle, while a third worked the piston within it. Such was the rudiment of our first fire-engine.

” Now streets grow throng’d, and busy as by day: Some run for buckets to the hallow’d quire; Some cut the pipes, and some the engines play, And some, more bold, mount ladders to the fire.”

Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis (1666).

The * engines” were the syringes, which were greatly increased after the Great Fire, but were shortly afterwards superseded by regular fire-engines. By order of the Corporation of London, a Fire Police was established in 1668; the several parishes were provided with leathern buckets, ladders, pickaxes, sledges, shovels, and hand-squirts of brass; which supply the companies, aldermen, and subsidy-men contributed; and among other provisions was the ringing of a bell. The fire-cocks, and the ” F.P.” and ” W.M.” upon houses to denote the place of the fire-plug and water-main j and the rewards for bringing the parish-engines, date from stat. 6 Anne, cap. 31.

The Great Fire led to the establishment of Insurance Offices against losses by fire: in 1681, the Court of Common Council attempted to establish one, but unsuccessfully; the earliest was the Phoenix, at the Rainbow Coffee-house, Fleet-street, in 1682; the Friendly Society, 1684 (badge a sheath of arrows); and the Hand-in-Hand, established in 1696; next was the Sun, projected by one Povey, about 1706, and by the present Company in 1710; the Westminster Fire Office, 1717 ; each office keeping its firemen in liveries, with silver badges; and their fire-engines, which they from time to time improved. In 1676 was patented an engine with leathern pipes, for quenching fire; and about 1720 two Germans had at Bethnal-green a manufactory of water-tight seamless hose. Here is Gay’s mock-heroic picture of a fire of this*period :— ” Now with thick crowds th’ enlightcn’d pavement swarms,

The fireman sweats beneath his crooked arms;

A leathern casque his vent’rous head defends,

Boldly he climbs where thickest smoke ascends.

Mov’d by the mother’s streaming eyes and prayers,

The helpless infant through the “flame he bearsc plame he,

With no less virtue than through hostile fire

The Dardan hero bore his aged sire.

See forceful engines spout their leveled streams,

To quench the blaze that runs along the beams;

The grappling-hook plucks rafters from the walls,

And heaps on heaps the smoky ruin falls.

***** e

Hark ! the drum thunders! far, ye crowds, retire:

Behold! the ready match is tipt with fire,

The nitrous store is laid, the smutty train

With running blaze awakes the barrell’d grain,

Flames sudden wrap the walls; with sullen sound

The shatter’d pile sinks on the smoky ground.”— Trivia, b. iii.

In 1798 was formed the Fire-watch or Fire-guard of London; the Insurance Offices still keeping their separate engine establishments. In 1808, Sir F. M. Eden, then chairman of the Globe Insurance Company, proposed to form a general fire-engine establishment, but the attempt failed. About 1825, the Sun, Union, and Royal Exchange formed a brigade. In 1832, eight Insurance Companies formed an alliance for assisting each other at fires j hence the ” London Fire-Engine Establishment,” which commenced operations in 1833. By the rules, London was divided into five districts: in each were engine-stations : besides a floating-engine off Rotherhithe and Southwark Bridge; these required more than 100 men each for working, and threw up two tuns of water per minute. A certain number of the men or ” Fire Brigade,” superintended by Mr. Braidwood, were ready at all hours of the day and night, as were also the engines, to depart at a minute’s alarm, in case of fire. The Associations awarded gra-

tuities to policemen who gave an alarm to the nearest engine-station; and the director or captain of each engine paid strangers or bystanders for aid : it required from twenty to thirty men to work each engine; and at a large fire, 500 strangers were sometimes thus employed. Sometimes the engines were summoned by electric telegraph, and conveyed by railway to fires in the country.

The number of engines kept was 37; of the Fire Brigade, 96. The men wore a dark grey uniform, trimmed with red, black leather waist-belts, hardened leathern helmets, reminding one of the leathern casque and ” the Dardan hero ” of Gay’s Trivia. The engines were provided with scaling ladders; a canvas sheet, with handles of rope round the edge, to form a fire-escape; besides , sape; beropes, hose, branch-pipes, suction-pipes, a flat rose, goose-neck, dam-board, boat-hook, saw, shovel, mattock, pole-axe, screw-wrench, crowbar, portable cistern, two dog-tails, strips of sheep-skin, small cord, instruments for opening the fire-plugs, and keys for turning the stop-cocks of the water-mains.

Another ingenious provision was a smoke-proof dress, consisting of a leathern jacket and head covering, fastened at the waist and wrist, so that the interior is smoke-proof: two glass windows served for the eyes to look through, and a pipe attached to the girdle allowed fresh air to be pumped into the interior of the jacket, to support the respiration of the wearer: thus equipped, the fireman could dare the densest smoke.

Steam-power was first applied to work a fire-engine in 1830. {See Argyll Booms, p. 22.) There is also on the Thames a steam floating-engine, the machinery of which either propels the vessel, or works the pumps, as required. Subsequently were introduced the land steam fire-engines, by which is diminished damage by water, which is driven by such force by steam that almost every drop does its full duty.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Life from Fire was first established in 1836; re-organized in 1843; for establishing Fire-escape Stations and Conductors; supported by voluntary subscriptions and parochial vestries.

As London grows and grows, the number of Fires recorded every year in the vast agglomeration of brick and mortar increases also. Thus in 1863 the total was 1404, being 101 more than in 1862. In the latter year, the Parliamentary Committee appointed to inquire into the existing arrangements for the Protection of Life and Property against Fire in the Metropolis, reported that twenty years previously the number of fires in London was about 450, and in 1862 the total number was 1183. According to Sir Richard Mayne’s estimate, the whole of the Metropolitan Police area and the City of London together, extending over 700 square miles, may be considered as containing rather above 3,000,000 of inhabitants, residing in about 475,000 houses, and the rental for taxation about 14,800,000?. The magnitude of the interest at stake was also shown by Mr. Newmarch, who stated in his evidence that the total value of property insurable against fire within six miles of Charing Cross was not less than 1)00,000,000?., and of this not more than about 300,000,000?, were insured.

A new force, under the management of the Board of Works, and with the title of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, embodying the whole of the present force and engines of the London Fire Establishment, is doubly strengthened. The plan decided on is that of Captain Shaw, who has been appointed its chief superintendent. The force consists of chiefs and 350 officers and men, 4 steam floating-engines, 4 large land-steamers, 27 small land-steamers, and 37 large manual engines, with horses, drivers, &c. These are distributed among 33 large and 56 small fire-stations, protecting an area of about. 117 square miles. Compared with the previous Fire Brigade, the increase is 72 additional stations, 219 extra firemen, 2 large floating and 2 large land-steamers, 21 small land-steamers, and 61 manual engines. The cost of its maintenance is not to exceed 50,000?. per annum, partly contributed by a public rate of \d. in the pound, 10,000?. contributed by the various metropolitan fire-insurance companies, and 10,000?. from the Government. There are nearly 500 parish engines in the metropolis, but not more than 20 wered o than 2 considered to be sufficiently efficient to be accepted in the new force.

By the establishment of telegraphic communication between the central station in Watling-street and the other principal stations, the necessary force of men and engines can be despatched to the required spot in a much shorter time than formerly. There are also telegraph lines to docks, railways, wharves, and warehouses.

By the aid of the telegraph the firemen at each station can now be informed of the locality of a firo with much greater certainty than formerly. By means of fixed compasses at each observatory, “cross-bearings are taken from distant points,” and the results sent to the central station in Watling-street. The exact locality is then ascertained by observing on a map the spot at which the lines converge. The process is simply the reverse of that by which a ship’s position is ascertained at sea,” and can be easily accomplished in the three minutes occupied in turning out an engine.—;Capt. Shaw’s Report, 1864.) The crowds at fires are now kept off by stretched wire-ropes.

FLEET PRISON (THE),

ABOLISHED and removed in 1846, after nearly eight centuries’ existence, was indisputably named from the creek or stream of the Fleet, upon the eastern hank of which it was erected. This was once a busy river covered with ships and small craft; now it is a dark, hidden stream.

The prison was formerly held in conjunction with the manor of Leveland, in Kent, and with “the king’s houses at Westminster:” the whole being part of the ancient possessions of the See of Canterbury, traceable in a grant from Archbishop Lanfranc, soon after the accession of William the Conqueror. The wardenship or serjeancy of the prison was anciently held by several eminent personages, who also had custody of the king’s palace at Westminster.* It was ” a place,” in the worst sense of the phrase; for, so long ago as 1586, the persons to whom the Warden had underlet it were guilty of cruelty and extortion—crimes, however, characteristic of the Court of Star Chamber, of which the Fleet was at this time the prison. Up to this period, its history is little better than a sealed book; the burning of the prison by the followers of Wat Tyler seeming to have been the only noticeable event.

In the reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, the Fleet was tenanted by several victims of religious bigotry. Bishop Hooper was twice committed to the Fleet, which he only quitted (1555) for the stake and the fire at Gloucester; upon his way whither, he slept at the Angel Inn, St. Clement’s: in the Fleet, his bed was “a little pad of straw, with a rotten covering;” his ” chamber was vile and stinking.”

The Warden’s fees in the reign of Elizabeth were: an Archbishop, Duke, or Duchess, for his commitment-fee, and the first week’s ” dyett,” 21Z. 10*.; a lord, spiritual or temporal, 101. bs. lOd.; a knight, 51.; an esquire, 31. 6s. 8d.; and even ” a poor man in the wards, that hath a part at the box, to pay for his fee, having no dyett, 7*. 4d.” The Warden’s charge for license to a prisoner ” to go abroad” was 20d. per diem.

From the reign of Elizabeth to the sixteenth year of Charles 1. (16-11), the Star-Chamber Court was in full activity; and thctivityseveral bishops and other persons of distinction were imprisoned in the Fleet for their religious opinions. Thither, too, were consigned the political victims of the Star Chamber : two of the most interesting cases of this period being those of Prynne and Lilburne. Prynne was taken out of the prison, and, after suffering pillory, branding, mutilation of the nose and loss of ears, was remanded to the Fleet. Lilburne—”Freeborn John”—and his printer, were committed to the Fleet for libel and sedition: the former was smartly whipped at the cart’s tail, from the prison to the pillory, placed between Westminster Hall and the Star Chamber; and subsequently double ironed in the prison wards.

Another tenant of the Fleet at this period was James Howel, the author of the Familiar Letters, several of which are dated from the prison. By a letter ” to the Earl of B., from the Fleet,” Nov. 20, 1643, Howel was arrested ” one morning betimes,” by five men armed with ” swords, pistols, and bils,” and some days after committed to the Fleet; ” and,” he adds, ” as far as I see, I must lie at dead anchor in this Fleet a long time unlesse some gentle gale blow thence to make me launch out.” Then we find him consoling himself with the reflection that the English people are in effect but prisoners, as all other islanders are. Other letters, by Howel, date from the Fleet, 1615-6-7.

After the abolition of the Star Chamber, in 1641, the Fleet became a prison for debtors only, and for contempt of the Court of Chancery, Common Pleas, and Exchequer. It appears to have been used for the confinement of debtors from the thirteenth century, at least, by a petition from John Frauncey, a debtor in the Fleet, a.d. 1290.

The prison was burnt down in the Great Fire; when the prisoners were removed to Caroone or Caron House, in South Lambeth, until the Fleet was rebuilt on theoriginalsite.

Long after the Star Chamber was abolished, the Wardens continued their extortionate fees, and loading debtors with iron : their cruelties were exposed in 1696. In 1727, after a parliamentary investigation, Bambridge and Huggins (Wardens) and some

• To the Warden belonged the rents of the shops in Westminster Hall.

of their servants were tried for different murders, yet all escaped by a verdict of not guilty ! Hogarth has, however, made them immortal in their infamy, by his picture of Bambridge under examination, whilst a prisoner is explaining how he has been tortured.

One Dance, the son of the architect, was imprisoned in the Fleet as a debtor, and, in a poem entitled the Humours of the Fleet, 1749, has described the inmates of ” this poor but merry place,” its rackets, or wrestle, billiards, backgammon, and whist; the rough justice of drenching disturbers of the peace beneath the pump. Dance’s book has a frontispiece of the prison-yard: a new-comer treating the gaoler, cook, and others, to drink; racket-playing against the high brick-wall, with chevaux-de-frise mountings, and a pump and a tree in one corner. Dance tells of a ” wind-up to-day in a prison,”—that watchmen repeated, Who goes out ? from half-past nine till St. Paul’s clock struck ten, to give visitors notice to depart; when the last stroke was given, they cried, All told; the gates were locked, and nobody suffered to go out upon any account. The readew unt. Ther will, doubtless, recollect Mr. Dickens’s life-like pictures of the Fleet, in his Pickwick Papers.

In the Riots of 1780, the Fleet was destroyed by fire, and the prisoners liberated by the rioters. Most of the papers and Prison records were lost; though there remain scattered books and documents of several centuries back. The Warden had been directed by the Lord Mayor not to make any resistance to the mob, which, as an eyewitness informed the writer of a short History of the Fleet published in 1845, might have been easily dispersed by a few soldiers. The rioters were polite enough to send notice to the prisoners of the period of their coming; and, on being informed it would be inconvenient on account of the lateness of the hour, postponed their visit to the following day.

Immediately after “the Riots,” the prison was rebuilt: it consisted chiefly of one long brick pile parallel with Farringdon-street, and standing in an irregularly-shaped area, so as to leave open spaces before and behind, connected by passages round each other : this pile was called the Master’s Side. The front in Farringdon-street had an arched opening into a room, and was technically called ” the grate,” from its crossed iron bars. Above was inscribed, ” Pray remember the poor prisoners having no allowance ;” a small box was placed at the window-sill, to receive the charity of passengers in the street, while a prisoner within shouted in suppliant tone the above prayer. This was a relic of the ancient prison, corresponding with the ” begging at the grate” in some old comedies; and “having a part at the box” already mentioned. Disorderly prisoners were put in the stocks, or strong-room; and those who attempted to escape were confined in a tub at the prison-gate. There was likewise ” the Running Box;” that is, a man running to and fro in the neighbouring streets, shaking a box, and begging the passengers to put money into it, for the poor prisoners in the Fleet. In Tempest’s Cries of London, 1710, is a representation of the bearer of the Running Box, inscribed, “Remember the poor prisoners.” At his back is suspended, by leathern straps, a covered basket for broken victuals j he carries in one hand a staff, and in the other a small round deep box, with an aperture in the lid for receiving alms in money.

Above the entrance to the prison was the figure 9; so that a delicate address given by the prisoners was ” No. 9, Fleet Market.”

Alack ! what ” strange bedfellows ” did debt—a phase of misery—make men acquainted with in the Fleet! If a prisoner was unwilling to go to the Common Side (for which he paid nothing), he had the choice of going down into ” Bartholomew Fair,” the lowest and sunken story, where he paid 1*. 3d. for the undisturbed use of a room; or up to some of the better apartments, where he paid the same rent, but was subject to chummage— i.e., a fellow-prisoner put into his room, or ” chummed upon him,” but who might be got rid of by a payment of is. 6d. per week, or more, according to the fulness of the prison. The latter prisoner would then provide himself with a common lodging, by letting which prisoners in the Fleet were known to have accumulated hundreds of pounds in the course of a few years. The prison sometimes had 1000 inmates.

It was throughout a sad scene of recreant waste, vagabondism, and ruffian recklessness: it had a skittle-shed; and a racket-ground, where Cavanagh was a noted fives-player. (See Hazlitt’s life of him, Examiner, Feb. 17, 1819.) Here you might hear the roar of the great towo sthe gren from without, in contrast with the stagnant life within the prison-walls, above the chevaux-de-frise of which might be seen a church-spire or two.

Happily, this pest of a prison, the Fleet, by Act of Parliament, 1842, was abolished, and its few inmates were drafted to the Queen’s Prison. The property, covering nearly

an acre of ground, was purchased of the Government hy the Corporation of London for 25,000Z. The prison was taken down, and the materials sold, in 1816; comprising nearly three millions of bricks, 50 tons of lead, 40,000 feet of paving, &c. The ground, after lying almost useless for 17 years, was sold to the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company for the erection of their Ludgate station.

The liberty of the Rules and the Day-Mules of the Fleet may be traced to the time of Richard II., when prisoners were allowed to go at large by bail, or with a baston (tipstaff), for nights and days together. This license was paid for at 8d. per day, and 12d. for his keep that shall be with him. These were Day-rules. However, they were confirmed by a rule of Court during the reign of James I. The Rules wherein prisoners were allowed to lodge were enlarged in 1824, so as to include the churches of St. Bride’s and St. Martin’s, Ludgate; New Bridge-street. Blackfriars, to the Thames; Dorset-street and Salisbury-square, and part of Fleet-street, Ludgate-hill and street, to the entrance of St. Paul’s Churchyard, the Old Bailey, and the lanes, courts, &c, in the vicinity of the above ; the extreme circumference of the liberty about a mile and a half. Those requiring the rules had to provide sureties for their forthcoming, and keeping within the boundaries, and to pay a percentage on the amount of debts for which they were detained; which also entitled them to the liberty of the Day-rules, enabling them during term, or the sitting of the Courts at Westminster, to go abroad during the day, to transact or arrange their affairs, &c. The Fleet and the Queen’s Bench were the only prisons in the kingdom to which these privileges had for centuries been attached.

Fleet Marriages, i.e. clandestine marriages, were performed in this prison previously to the year 1754; and though not legal and regular, they were tacitly recognised as being valid and indissoluble. Many of these weddings were really performed in the chapel of the prison; though, as the practice extended, ” the Fleet parsons” and tavern-keepers in the neighbourhood fitted up a room in their lodgings or houses as a chapel; and most of the taverns near the Fleet kept their own registers. In 1702, the Bishop of London interfered to prevent this scandalous practice, but with little effect; and it was not until the Act of Parliament came into operation, March 25, 1754, that the custom was put an end to. On the day previously (March 24,) in one register-book alone, were recorded 217 marriages, which were the last of the Fleet weddings. In 1821, a collection of these register-books, weighing more than a ton (recording Fleet marriages between 1686 and 1754), was purchased by Government, and deposited in the Registry Office of the Bishop of London, Godliman-street, Doctors’ Commons. Many celebrated names figure in these registers; and although they are not now, as formerly, received in evidence on trials, they are not altogether useless as matters of record, &c. For their history, their parsons, and registers, see Mr. J. Burn’s volume.

Pope commemorates the Fleet Prison as a ” Haunt of the Muses.” Lord Surrey, the poet,754ey, the was twice imprisoned here; as was Nash for writing the satirical play of the Isle of Dogs. Wycherley, the wit and dramatist, lay in the Fleet seven years, ruined through his Countess’ settlement being disputed. Sir Richard Baker was one of the most unfortunate debtors confined here: he married in 1620, and soon after got into pecuniary difficulties, and was thrown into the Fleet, where he spent the remaining years of his life, writing his Chronicle and other works as a means of subsistence; he died in 1611-5, in extreme poverty, and was interred in old St. Bride’s Church. Francis Sandford, author of the Genealogical History, died in the Fleet, in 1693. Passing to another class of committals—Keys was sent here for marrying the Lady Mary Grey, the sister of Lady Jane Grey; Dr. Donne for marrying Sir George More’s daughter without her father’s knowledge; Sir Robert Killigrew, for speaking to Sir Thomas Overbury, as he came from visiting Sir Walter Raleigh; the Countess of Dorset, for pressing into the Privy Chamber, and importuning James I., ” contrary to commandment;” and Lucius Carey, Viscount Falkland, for sending a challenge. Curll’s Corinna (Mrs. Thomas) was a prisoner in the Fleet for some time; Mrs. Cornelys died here in 1797; and Parson Ford, in 1731. Parson Keith, of May Fair, was here in 1758; and Robert Lloyd, Churchill’s friend, in 1764. Arthur Murphy, provoked by the satires of Churchill and Lloyd, describes them as among the poor hacks

” On Ludgate-hill who bloody murders write, Or pass in Fleet-street supperless the night.”

Howel’s Letters, already mentioned, have had a parallel in our time, in Richard Oastler’s Meet Papers, ” a weekly epistle on public matters,” inscribed to Thomas Thornhill, Esq., of Fixby Hall, Yorkshire, whose steward Oastler had been, and at whose suit he was imprisoned here; he was liberated by subscription, Feb. 12,1844: and a bronze group, by Philip, has been erected at Bradford, in memory of his advocacy of the Ten Hours’ Factory Bill. Mr. Rowcroft also wrote a volume of Fleet Papers.

FLEET RIVER AND FLEET DITCH.

THE small, rapid stream Fleet, which has given name to the Prison and Street, and •*- the portion of the City Wall ditch from Holborn to the Thames, has its origin in a nursery-ground on the eastern ridge of Hampstead Hill. Here it becomes a sewer, after which it issues from the side of a bank below Well Walk j and then flows down a small valley of gardens and orchards to near the reservoir of the Hampstead water-heads, to feed which the springs of the Fleet were collected in 1589, and were afterwards leased out by the City of London. From Hampstead the Fleet may be traced to the upper part of Kentish Town, after which it is diverted from its original course for the sewerage of Camden Town ; but its ancient channel may be traced at the back of the Castle Tavern, Kentish Town, next in the KingVroad, near St. Pancras Workhouse; and about 1825, the Fleet was conspicuous all along the Bagnigge-wells-road, but is now covered over. Its further course is under the walls of the House of Correction, in Cold-bath-fields, thence to the workhouse in Coppice-row, under Eyre-street (formerly Hockley-in-the-Hole), having here been formerly joined by ” the River of the Wells,” formed by Clerken, Skinners’, and other wells; and thus to the bottom of Holborn. Here it received the waters of the Old Bourne, which rose near Middle-row, and the channel of which forms the sewer of Holborn Hill to this day. Thence the united streams flowed beneath whbe ed beneat is now called Farringdon-street into the Thames.

Stow mentions “that a Parliament being holden at Carlisle in the year 1307, the 35 Edward I., Henry Lacy Earle of Lincolne complained, that whereas (in times past) the course of water, running at London under Old-borne Bridge, and Fleet Bridge, into the Thames, had beene of such bredth and depth that ten or twelve ships, Navies at once, with Merchandises, were wont to come to the aforesaid bridge of Fleet, and some of them unto Old-borne Bridge,” &c. An anchor has been discovered as high as the present Bagnigge-wells-road; and even, it is said, the remains of a ship, in the bed of this ancient river, near Camden Town. The upper supply of water being diverted, the ditch became stagnant, and into it were thrown all sorts of offal, dogs and cats, and measled hogs, which Ben Jonson has minutely described: it became also a kind of cloaca maxima, impassable with boats ; in 1652 it was ordered to be cleansed, but the nuisance was scarcely abated.

The Fleet was anciently crossed by four bridges within the boundary of the City :

the first of these, Holborn Bridge, was covered up in 1802, but the arch and part of

the parapet were discovered during the repair of the ditch, in 1811.

In the bed of the Fleet many Roman and Saxon coins have been discovered. In 1670 various Roman utensils were found between Holborn and Fleet Bridge; besides Roman coins, including silver ring-money. At Holborn Bridge were dug up two brazen lares, about four inches long,—Bacchus and Ceres; also arrow-heads, scales, and seals, with the proprietors* names upon them in Saxon characters ; spur-rowols, keys, and daggers; medals, crosses, crucifixes, &c.

The second was Fleet-lane Bridge, near the Prison. Fleet Bridge, the third, connected Fleet-street with Ludgate-hill: it was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666; and in its place, another, the breadth of the street (Strype), was erected, ornamented with pine-apples and the City arms; it was finally removed in 1765. The fourth bridge crossed the Fleet opposite Bridewell, formerly the site of a tower, supposed to have appertained to the Saxon kings of England.

After the Great Fire, the Fleet, or Town Ditch, between Holborn and the Thames, was cleansed and deepened by the Corporation, so that barges ascended to Holborn Bridge, as formerly: wharfs and landing places were constructed; and Seacoal and Newcastle lanes, and large inn-yards, remaining to this day, attest the barge traffic. Seacoal-lane is mentioned under that name (Secol-lane,) as early as 1253; where, doubtless, the coal was brought in barges up the Fleet river, and stored for domestic purposes. This ” New Canal,” as it was called, cost 27,777£., but proved unprofitable: it became choked with Thames mud, and again relapsed into a common sewer. Gay sings of its ” muddy current; and Pope points

” To where Fleet-ditch, with disemboguing streams Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames, The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud With deeper sable blots the silver flood.”— The Bunciad, book ii.

Swift thus revels in itsemarevels delicice, in his City Shower : —

“Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow, And bear their trophies with them as they go; Filth of all hues and odours seem to tell What street they sail’d from by their sight and smell. They, as each torrent drives its rapid force, From Smithfield to St. ‘Pulchre’s shape their course, And in huge confluence joined at Snowhill ridge, Fall from the Conduit prone to Holborn Bridge; Sweepings from butchers’ stalls, dung, guts, and blood, Drown’d puppies, stinking sprats, all drench’d in mud, Bead cats, and turnip-tops, come tumbling down the flood.”

Fleet Ditch is engraved as the frontispiece to Warbur ton’s Pope, vol. v. (The Dunciad.) The ditch grew to be so pestilential a nuisance,* its slime smothering many persons who fell into it, that the space between Holborn Bridge and Fleet-street was arched over, and Stocks Market removed here, changed to Fleet Market, and opened for the sale of meat, fish, and vegetables, Sept, 30, 1737; and upon the site of Stocks Market was built the Mansion House. The remaining portion of the Fleet, the mouth of which Pennant describes as ” a muddy and genuine ditch,” continued open until 1765, at the building of Blackfriars Bridge; the foul stream was then arched over, and entered the Thames on the west side of the bridge, to be conveyed some distance into the river by a culvert; the vaulting at this end is 12 feet high, and the channel 18 feet wide. (See Sewees.)

Since 1841, Fleet Ditch, parallel with Field-lane, has been covered over; but it might be traced in the alleys at the back of Cow-cross, whence it continued open to Ray-street, Clerkenwell; while Brookhill and Turnmill streets kept in memory the brook which ran here into the Fleet, and the mill belonging to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, which was turned by its waters.

In 1829 was completed a new market between the north end of Farringdon-street and Shoe-lane; whither, on Nov. 20, was removed Fleet Market, the premises of which were then taken down. At the south end of Farringdon-street is a granite obelisk, erected in 1839 to the memory of Alderman Waithman, who commenced business as a linendraper close to this spot in 1785 ; was Lord Mayor in 1823-21, and was returned six times to Parliament for the City of London. Opposite Waithman’s obelisk is a monument which bears the name of a much less worthy citizen, John Wilkes, and the year of his mayoralty, 1775.

In 1855, the valley of the Fleet, from Coppice-row to Farringdon-street, was cleared of many old and decaying dwellings, many of a date anterior to the Fire of London. From Coppice-row a fine view of St. Paul’s Cathedral was opened by the removal of these buildings.

In making the excavation for the great sewer which now conveys from view the Fleet Ditch, at a depth of about 13 feet below the surface hi Ray-street, near the corner of Little Saffron-hill, the workmen came upon the pavement of an old street, consisting of very large blocks of ragstone of irregular shape. An examination of the paving-stones showed that the street had been well used: they are worn quite smooth by the footsteps and traffic of a past generation. Below the old street was found another phase of Old London. Thickly covered with slime were piles of oak, hard and black, which had seemingly been portions of a mill-dam. A lew feet below were very old wooden water-pipes, nothing but the rough trunks of trees. Thope of tree course of time and the weight of matter above the old pavement had pressed the gravel, clay, granite, portions of tiles, &c, into a hard and almost solid mass, and it was curious to observe that near the old surface were great numbers of pins. Whither have the pins gone ? is a query which has puzzled many. The now hard concrete, stuck with these useful articles, almost like a pincushion, is a partial reply to the query. The 13 feet of newer deposit would seem to have accumulated in two or three centuries: it is not unlikely that a portion of the rubbish from the City after the Great Fire was shot here.— The Builder.

FLEET-STREET,

TVTAMED from the river Fleet, and extending from the junction of Farringdon-•*-” street and New Bridge-street, is one of the most ancient and celebrated thoroughfares in London. For many centuries it has been noted for its exhibitions and processions ; its printers, stationers, and booksellers; its early coffee-houses and taverns, and banking-houses. It has leading from it thirty-four streets, lanes, and courts.

Fleet-street was noted for its signs: the counting of them, ” from Temple Bar to the furthest conduit in Cheapside,” &c., is quoted as a remarkable instance of Fuller’s memory. (Life, &c., p. 76, ed. 1662.) The swinging of one of these broad signs, in a high wind, and the weight of iron on which it acted, sometimes brought the wall down; and one front-fall of this kind in Fleet-street-maimed several persons, and killed” two young ladies, a cobler, and the King’s jeweller.”— The Doctor, by K. Southey, one vol. edit. p. 237.

Before the Great Fire, and long after, Fleet-street was badly paved; the houses, mostly of timber, overhung in all imaginable positions; and the shops were rude sheds with a penthouse, beneath which the tradesmen unceasingly called ” What d’ye lack, gentles? What d’ye lack ?” It was then but a suburb. Temple-bar was originally

* Chamberlayne (1727), however, mentions it as “a mighty chargeable and beautiful work: the curious stone bridges over it; the many huge vaults on each side thereof, to treasure up Newcastle coals lor the use ot the poor.”

a wooden gatehouse across the road to divide the City from Westminster; and often in Fleet-street might he seen men playing at footbalL

The street was encumbered with posts, upon which the performances at the theatres were announced; hence posting-bills. Taylor, the water-poet, relates that Master Field, the player, riding up Fleet-street at a great pace, a gentleman called him, and asked him what play was to be played that day ? He being angry to be stayed on so frivolous a demand, answered that he might see what play was to be played on every pott. ” I cry your mercy,” said the gentleman; ” I took you for a pott, you rode so fast.”

Fleet-street retains its celebrity for printing-offices in the adjoining lanes and courts, greatly increased by the newspapers of the last half century. The Great Fire stopped three houses eastward of St. Dunstan’s, and within a few doors of the Inner Temple-gate, nearly opposite.

No. 103 (now Sunday Times t MSunday office) was formerly the shop of Alderman Waithman, whither he removed from the south end of Fleet-market. At No. 106, the sign of the Red Lion, Hardham’s 37-snuff was first made and sold by John Hardbam, olim Garrick’s ” numberer.” In 1824, Nov. 14, several old honses on the south side of the street were destroyed by fire, besides that in which Milton had lodged, in St. Bride’s Churchyard. Subsequently was opened the present architectural avenue to St. Bride’s Church, designed by J. B. Papworth: cost, 10,000/. At the east corner, No. 86, was . published by D. Bogue, in 1855, the first edition of the Curiosities of London, of which 3000 copies were sold.

In Bride-lane is the ancient St. Bride’s Well, over which is a pump; and here is Cogers’ Hall, a tavern, where the Cogers met from 1756. Curran made his first oratorical effort among the Cogers; Daniel O’Connell was a member; as was also Judge Keogh.

In Shoe-lane, leading to Holborn-hill, was a notorious cockpit in Pepys’s time. At the north end, from 1378 to 1647, was the town-house of the Bishop of Bangor; and a part of the garden, with lime-trees and a rookery, existed in 1759; the mansion was taken down in 1828. Shoe-lane is associated with four poets: in the burial-ground of St. Andrew’s Workhouse, now covered by Farringdon Market, was buried Chatterton; in St. Andrew’s Churchyard lies Henry Neele; in Gunpowder-alley, in 1658, died in abject poverty, Richard Lovelace, the cavalier poet, ” the most amiable and beautiful person that eyes ever beheld ;”* in 1749, in a wretched lodging-house off Shoe-lane, died Richard Boyce. In Gunpowder-alley, too, lived Evans, the astrologer, the friend and instructor of Lilly, the ” Sidrophel” of Hudibras.

Opposite Shoe-lane was the famous Fleet-street Conduit. (See p. 288.) At No. 134, the Globe tavern, frequented by Goldsmith, and Macklin the actor, was held the Robin Hood Club. Salisbury-court, nearly facing, was once the inn of the bishops of Salisbury ;then of the Sackvilles, and was called Sackville House and Dorset House; whence Dorset-street. After the Great Fire, Wren built for Davenant ” the Duke’s Theatre,” opened 1671, where Betterton played : it had a picturesque front to the Thames; upon its site are the City Gas-works. Salisbury or Dorset-court had also its play-house, originally the granary of Salisbury House; it was pulled about by sectarian soldiers in 1649, rebuilt in 1660, but destroyed in the Great Fire. The court was a scene of the Mug-house Riots of 1716, and here was a noted Mug-house. In Salisbury-court (now square) Richardson wrote his Pamela, and printed his own novels; his printing-office being at the top of the court, now No. 76, Fleet-street: Goldsmith was once Richardson’s ” reader;” and here was printed Maitland’s London, folio, 1739. Richardson was visited here by Hogarth, Dr. Johnson, Dr. Young; Seeker, Archbishop of Canterbury; and Mrs. Barbauld, when a playful child. Here was also the printing-office of Gillett, twice destroyed, in 1805 and 1810, by fire: the premises were rebuilt; and here, in 1814 were burnt 10,000 copies of the Memoir of the notorious Mary Anne Clarke, upon condition of her debts being paid, and an annuity of 400Z. granted her : the burning occupied three entire days.

Water-lane (flow Whitefriars-street) leads to Whitefriars, named from a convent of white-robed Carmelites, and called Alsatia from 1608 to 1696 (see Scott’s Fortunes of Nigel); extending from Fleet-street to the Thames, and from the western side of Water-lane to the Temple : it was a privileged sanctuary, abolished in 1697 : a notorious

* George Petty, haberdasher, in Fleet-street, carried twenty shillings to Lovelace every Monday morning, from Sir Many, and Charles Cotton, Esq., for months, until the poet’s death.

retreat for cheating creditors, had its cant Lomhard-street; and had many a Cheatly, Shamwell, Hackum, and Scapeall. (See Shadwell’s Squire of Alsatia.) At the Harrow, in Water-lane, lived Filby, Goldsmith’s tailor. No. 64, Fleet-street, much altered, is the Bolt-in-Tun Inn, mentioned in a grant to the White Friars in 1443, as ” Hospitium vocattim Le Boltenton;” the sign is an arrow, or bolt, partly in a tun. In Whitefriars-street, adjoining, is the Black Lion, a small inn-yard, with the exterior wooden gallery in part remaining.

At the east corner of Peterborough-court was one of the earliest shops for the Instantaneous Light apparatus, ” Hertner’s Eupyrion” (phosphorus and oxymuriate matches, to be dipped in sulphuric acid and asbestos), the costly predecessor of the Lucifer-match. Nearly opposite were the works of Jacob Perkins, the engineer of the steam-gun, exhibited at the Adelaide Gallery, Strand; and which the Duke of Wellington truly foretold would never be advantageously employed in warfare. About midway on the north side lived Thomas Hardy, the bootmaker, who was tried with Home Tooke, in 1794, for treason; he was also one of the three who commenced the London Corresponding Society, and its secretary: he died in his 82nd year, and is buried in Bunhill-fields, beneath a semi-political monument.

On the north side is Bolt-court, where, at No. 8, Dr. Johnson lived from 1776 till his death in 1784; while here, Johnson unsuccessfully applied (in 1776) to the Earl of Hertford, requesting apartments in Hampton Court Palace. Johnson’s house was subsequently Bensley’s printing-office, and was burnt June 26, 1819. The Johnson’s Head tavern was not contemporary with the Doctor. (See Notes and Queries, No. 123.) At No. 4, Ferguson, the astronomer, died Nov. 1776. In the court, Cobbett wrote, printed, and published his Political Register, and sold Indian corn. The Register was subsequently published at No. 83, Fleet-street, where was exhibited a large iron Gridiron, which Cobbett had made for his political sign. No. 3, Bolt-court, was bequeathed to the Medical Society of London by Dr. Lettsom; over the door is an emblematic bas-relief. The Society removed, in 1851, to 33, George-street, Hanover-square.

Wine-office-court: Goldsmith lodged here in 1761, when Johnson first visited him ; Goldsmith then wrote for the Public Ledger newspaper, and began the Vicar of Wakefield. Here is an old chop-house, the Cheshire Cheese, long noted for punch.

Johnson’s-court: at No. 7, Samuel Johnson lived 1765 to 1776; the John Bull newspaper was commenced here, at No. 11, in 1820, with Theodore Hook as editor. Northward is Gough-square, where, at No. 17, Johnson compiled the greater portion of his Dictionary, 1748 to 1758.

Serjeants’ Inn, on the south side of Fleet-street, was formerly an inn of court; the handsome offices were designed by Adam. No. 13, Fleet-street, the Amicable Life Assurance office, was rebuilt in 1839; the Society was first chartered by Queen Anne.

Ckane-cotjbt. (See p. 296.)

Red Lion-court: printing-offices of John Nichols (Gentleman’s Magazine), burnt Feb. 8, 1808; of Messrs. Valpy (Classics), where Punch was next printed; and of Richard Taylor, F.R.S. (Philosophical Magazine).

Hare-court (originally Ram-alley), opposite Fetter-lane, was noted for its public-houses and cook-shops, often mentioned in 17th century plays: it was a sanctuary until 1697.

No. 17, Fleet-street, is an interesting specimen of olden street-architecture; above the gateway to the Inner Temple, of plain Jacobean design, with a semicircular arch, and the Pegasus in the spandrils. It was built in 1609, and was not as inscribed, “Formerly the Palace of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey.”

One of the Curiotities of Fleet-street was Mrs. Salmon’s Moving Waxwork, originally established at the Golden Salmon, St. Martin’s, near Aldersgate (Harl. MS. 5931: Brit. Mus.) : ” it would have been ridiculous for the ingenious Mrs. Salmon to have lived at the sign of the Trout.” (The Spectator, No. 28.) Thence the Waxwork was removed to No. 189, Fleet-street, site of Messrs. Praed’s banking-house. At the death of Mrs. Salmon, aged 90, the collection was purchased by Mr. Clarke, a surgeon (father of Sir Charles Mansfield Clarke, M.D.), as an investment for his wife. Mrs. Clarke continued the exhibition as Mrs. Salmon’s, at No. 189, until 1795, when it was removed to No. 17, nearly opposite, at the cast corner of Inner Temple-lane; and here shown, with a figure of Anne Siggs, on crutches, at the door, until Mrs. Clarke’s death in 1812. The collection, much reduced, was then sold for 501., and subsequently shown at the west corner of Water-lane. Mrs. Salmon, with more probability, styled the above house ” once the Palace of Henry Prince of Wales, son of King James 1. 1″ but this residence is not mentioned

by his biographers: the first-floor front-room has, however, an enriched plaster ceiling, inscribed P. (triple plume) H., which, with part of the carved wainscoting, denote the house to be of the time of James I. Still, we do not find in the lives of Prince Henry any indication of this house as a royal palace. It appears that the house, though never the residence of Prince Henry, was the office in which the Council for the Management of the Duchy of Cornwall Estates held their sittings, in his time; and in the Calendar of State Papers, edited by Mrs. Green, we find entries dated from the Council-Chamber, in Fleet-street. The interior of the house is in the style of Inigo Jones, whose first office was Surveyor of the Works to Henry, Prince of Wales, until the year 1613.

In Fleet-street are the oldest banking firms, except Stone, Martin & Co., Lombard-street, who claim to be the successors of Sir Thomas Gresham. No. 1, Fleet-street (formerly the Marygold) is the banking-house of Child and Co., who date from soon after the Restoration; they occupy the rooms over Temple-bar for stowage of their books of accounts.

This firm was founded in the reign of Charles I., when Francis Child, apprentice to William Wheeler, a goldsmith, whose shop was on the site of the present banking-house, laid the foundation of his fortune by marrying his master’s daughter, by which he succeeded to the estate and business. ¦ Messrs. Child have the accounts of Nell Gwynne; and among the records of the firm are the accounts of the partner, Al”> e partnderman Backwell, for the sale of Dunkirk to the French. The principal of the firm is the Countess of Jersey, wife of George Child Villiers, Earl of Jersey, who assumed the name of Child upon his Countess inheriting the estates of her maternal grandfather, Robert Child, Esq., of Osterley Park, Middlesex. ” In the catalogue of a sale of prints, &c., by Mr. Hodgson, 9th June, 1834, lot 270, is an original sketch in oil by Hogarth, representing a memorable occurrence in the house of Child and Co., when they were delivered by temporary munificence of the Duchess of Marlborough.”

Next is Gosling’s, No. 19, sign of Three Squirrels, in the iron-work of a window,

originally on a lozenge shield.

Gosling, as founder of the house, is thus mentioned in the account of Secret Service Monies of Charles II. and James I.: ” To Richard Bakenham, in full, for several parcells of gold and silver lace, bought of William Gosling and partners, on 2nd May, 1674, by the Dutchess of Cleveland, for the wedding-clothes of Lady Sussex and Lichfield, 64W. 8».”

Messrs. Hoares’, No. 37 (Golden Bottle), dates from 1680.

The Golden Bottle is said to represent the flask carried by the founder of the establishment, when journeying to Loudon, as the story-books say, to seek his fortune. Richard Hoare, Esq., the principal of the firm, succeeded Sir F. Child as Alderman of the Ward of Farringdon Without; was Sheriff in 1740-41, in wliich year there were three Lord Mayors. Mr. Hoare has left a manuscript journal of his shrievalty, illustrating various customs, privileges, and ” treats ” of the City, and concluding thus: ” after being regaled with sack and walnuts, I returned to my own house in my private capacity, to my great consolation and comfort.” He was Lord Mayor in 1746.

Fleet-street was long ago the abode of dentists and makers of artificial teeth. An Almanac of 1709, advertises, ” John Watts, operator, who applies wholly to the said business, and lives in Racquet-court, Fleet-street.”

Fleet-street has been the cradle of printing, almost from its first introduction: Wynkyn de Worde (assistant of Caxton), at the Golden Sun, Swan, and Falcon, the latter in Falcon-court; the imprint to the Demaundes Joyous is as follows:

” Emprynted at London in Fletestre

te at the signe of the Swane by

me Wynkyn de Worde

In the yere of our

lorde a m

c c ceo

and xi

There, however, exists a book inscribed: ” emprynted by me Richarde Pynson at the templ Pa at thee barre of London 1493.” To these may be added Rastell, ” at the signe of the Starre;” of Richard Tottel, the eminent law printer and publisher, ” within Temple bar, at the signe of the Hande and Starre,” now the house and property of Messrs. Butterworth, who possess all the original leases of the same, including Tottel’s, in the reign of Henry VIII., to the present time.

The following were also contemporary printers in Fleet-street, viz.: Robert Copland, stationer, printer, bookseller, author, and translator: his sign, in 1515, was the Rose Garland. John Butler lived at the sign of St. John the Evangelist in 1529. Thomas Bertholit, King’s printer, dwelt at the Lucretia Romana: he retired from business about 1641. John Bedel, stationer and printer, lived, in 1531, at the sign of Our Lady of Pity. John Waylond, citizen and stationer, lived at the Blue Garland, 1541. Lawrence Andrew, a native of Calais, was a printer at the Golden Press, by Fleet-bridge. Thomas Godfrey, the printer of Chaucer’s works, lived near the Temple-bar.

Here, too, we find the cradle of steam-printing: Bensley, of Bolt-court, being the first to aid the labours of Konig, who had applied to German and other Continental printers unsuccessfully. Konig and Bensley were joined by Woodfall and Taylor, printers; and out of their joint exertions grew cylindrical printing, of which Mr. Walter, of the Times newspaper, was the first to avail himself, 28th of November, 1814; Bensley’s inking apparatus was, however, superseded by Cowper’s—a very important advance. Soon after the above date, we remember to have seen a large working cylinder-machine, which had been invented by Winch, a printer’s joiner, while he was confined in the King’s Bench Prison for debt.

Two of the most disastrous fires in Fleet-street were those at the printing-office of S. Hamilton, in Falcon-court, when printing materials, &c, were consumed to the value of 80,000/., February 21,1803; and at Bensley’s, Bolt-court, June 1819, where the costly woodcuts and printed stock of Dalloway’s elaborate History qf Sussex were destroyed.—Abridged from Walks and Talks about London.

The old Fleet-street taverns and coffee-bouses are mostly up passages. Upon the site of Child’s-place was the Devil Tavern, sign St. Dunstan pulling the Devil’s nose: here, in the Apollo chamber, over the door, were inscribed the verses by Jonson, commencing,

” Welcome, all who lead or follow, To the oracle of Apollo.”

Here Ben Jonson and his sons used to make their liberal meetings; the rules of Ben’s Club in gold letters over the chimney. (Tatler, No. 79.) These are preserved in the premises, at the back of Child’s bank, No. 1, with a terra-cotta bust of Apollo: the contemporary landlord was Sim Wadlow, “the king of skinkers.” (Jonson.) The club-room, fitted with a music-gallery, was afterwards used for balls and entertainments ; and the house continued to be the resort of the wits of the last century: ” I dined to-day” (Oct. 12, 1710) ” with Dr. Garth and Mr. Addison, at the Devil Tavern, near Temple-bar; and Garth treated.” (Swift’s Journal to Stella.) Here Dr. Johnson presided at a supper celebrating the publication of Mrs. Lennox’s first book, when the whole night was spent in festivity. The tavern was taken down in 1788 ; opposite is Apollo-court; and next door east, is the Cock Tavern, with an old carved and gilt sign-bird. (See Tavekns.) The Horn Tavern, now ub TavernAnderton’s Hotel, No. 164, was famous in 1604. (-See Coffee-houses : Dick’s, Rainbow, and Peele’s, pp. 264, 267, 268.)

No. 39 was ” the Mitre, in Fleet-street,” the tavern so often referred to in Boswell’s Life of Johnson : the Mitre, in Mitre-court, was of much later date. At the Mitre, in Fleet-street, in 1640, Lilly met old Will Poole, the astrologer, then living in Ram-alley. The Royal Society Club dined at the Mitre from 1743 to 1750; and the Society of Antiquaries met here for some time: the house had its token. This was Dr. Johnson’s favourite supper-house, the parties including Goldsmith, Percy, Hawkes-worth, and Boswell. Chamberlain Clark, who died in 1831, aged 92, was the last surviving of Johnson’s Mitre friends. It was a favourite house with Lord Stowell. The premises became Macklin’s Poets’ Gallery in 1788; and lastly Saunders’s Auction-rooms : they were taken down to enlarge the site for Hoare’s new Banking-house.

In the bay-windowed house, Nos. 184 and 185, lived Drayton, the poet. At No. 186, was commenced, Nov. 3, 1849, Notes and Queries. West of St. Dunstan’s is the Law Life Assurance Office, of Jacobean street-architecture, built by Shaw in 1834: next is the passage to Clifford’s Inn. Chaucer, when a student of the Inner Temple, was fined 2s. by the Society for beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet-street; so states Speght, the illustrator of the poet. Cowley was born near Chancery-lane; his father was an engrosser, not a grocer, as long stated. Isaac Walton lived two doors west of Chancery-lane, whither, in 1632, he removed. (See Chanceky-lane, p. 82.) At No. 197 was Rackstrow’s Anatomical Museum, and collection of natural and artificial curiosities, natural magic, &c., exhibited from 1736 to 1798. Bell-yard and Fetter-lane were once noted for fishing-tackle shops.

Shire-lane (now Lower Serle’s-place), hard by Temple-bar, named from its dividing the City from the Shire, was once a place of note. Here was born Sir Charles Sedley, the poet, and witty contemporary of Rochester; here lived Elias Ashmole, by turns astrologer, alchemist and antiquary, who called “father” one Backhouse, an adept, in Fleet-street, over against St. Dunstan’s Church.

In 1658, Ashmole left the astrologers and alchemists; in 1660, he was called to the har in Middle Temple Hall; and on Jan. 26, 1679, by a fire in his chambers in the Middle Temple, he lost most of his library, a cabinet of 9000 coins, besides, seals, charters, &c, and a curious collection of engraved portraits.

At the upper end of Shire-lane lived Isaac Bickerstaff, the Tatler, who led the deputation of ” Twaddlers” down the lane, across Fleet-street, to Dick’s Coffee-house. At the Trumpet (afterwards the Duke’s Head) public-house, in Shire-lane, the Tatler met his club ; and in the lane lived Christopher Kat, at whose house originated the Kit-Kat Club. (See pp. 250, 251.)

_ Fleet-street was the scene of the annual grand burning of the Pope (on November 17) in the reign of Charles II.; the torchlight procession beginning at Moorfields, and ending at Fleet-street, where the effigy of the Pope was burnt, opposite Middle Temple-gate. These saturnalia were kept up until after the expulsion of James II.; when the anti-popish mummery was transferred to Nov. 5. (See Temple and Temple Bab.)

Towards the west endick the we of Fleet-street have been erected several buildings of highly

ornamental character; as at the junction of Chancery-lane and Fleet-street, handsome Italian; the Crown Insurance Offices, Venetian, of marble, granite, and coloured stone; No. 21, Italian, of the Palladian school; No. 29, of Portland stone, granite, marble, &c.

Among the Fleet-street booksellers of our time, William Hone must be mentioned : he commenced business at No. 55, about the year 1812; where he published a pamphlet in vindication of the ill-fated Eliza Fenning, who is now believed to have been guiltless of the crime for which she suifered: the mystery has been thus cleared up by one of Fenning’s family attesting that a nephew of Mr. Turner, in Chancery-lane, when upon his death-bed, in Chelmsford, disclosed that, ” many years since, irritated with his uncle and aunt, with whom he resided, for not supplying him with money, he availed himself of the absence for a few minutes of the servant-maid from the kitchen, stepped into it and deposited a quantity of powdered arsenic on some dough he found mixed in a pan. Eliza Fenning, he added, was wholly ignorant of these facts.”

FOG OF LONDON.

THIS phenomenon is caused by the millions of blazing coal-fires in the metropolis contributing a vast quantity of fuliginous matter, which, mingling with the vapour, partly arising from imperfect drainage, produces that foggy darkness which Londoners not inaptly term ” awful.” Sometimes it is of a bottle-green colour; but if the barometer rise, it will either totally disappear or change into a white mist. At other times it is of pea-soup yellow; in the midst of which the street gas-lights appear like the pin-head lamps of old. The latter is the genuine November London Fog. ” First at the dawn of lingering day,

It rises of an ashy grey;

Then deepening with a sordid stain

Of yellow, like a lion’s mane.

Vapour importunate and dense,

It wars at once with every sense.

The ears escape not. All around

Eetums a dull, unwonted sound.

Loath to stand still, afraid to stir,

The chilled and puzzled passenger,

Oft blundering from the pavement, fails

To feel his way along the rails ;

Or at the crossings, in the roll

Of every carriage dreads nworiage dthe pole.

Scarce an eclipse with pall so dun

Blots from the face of heaven the sun.

But soon a thicker, darker cloak

Wraps all the town, behold, in smoke,

Which steam-compelling trade disgorges

From all her furnaces and forges

In pitchy clouds too dense to rise,

Descends rejected from the skies;

Till struggling day, extinguished quite,

At noon gives place to candle-light. The Fog, too, sensibly affects the organs of respiration : hence a Scotch physician has asked, ” If a person require half a gallon of pure air per minute, how many gallons of this foul atmosphere must be, as it were, filtered by his lungs in the course of a day ?” Sometimes the Fog is caused by a very ordinary accident,—a change of wind, thus accounted for: the west wind carries the smoke of the town eastward in a long train, extending twenty or thirty miles, as may be seen on a clear day from an eminence five or six miles from the town,—say, from Harrow-on-tbe-Hill. In this case, suppose the wind to change suddenly to the east, the great body of smoke will be brought back in an accumulated mass; and as this repasses the town, augmented by the clouds of smoke from every fire therein, it causes the murky darkness.

By accurate observation of the height of the Fog, relatively with the higher edifices, whose elevation is known, it has been ascertained that the Fogs of London never rise more than from 200 to 240 feet above the same level. Hence the air of the more

Oh, Chemistry, attractive maid, Descend, in pity, to our aid : Come with thy all-pervading gases, Thy crucibles, retorts, and glasses, Thy fearful energies and wonders, Thy dazzling lights and mimic thunders; Let Carbon in thy train be seen, Dark Azote and fair Oxygen, And Wollaston and Davy guide The car that bears them at thy side, If any power can, any how, Abate these nuisances, ’tis thou; And see to aid thee in the blow, The bill of Michael Angelo, O join (success a thing of course is) Thy heavenly to his mortal forces; Make all chimneys chew the cud Like hungry cows, as chimneys should! And since ’tis only smoke we “draw Within our lungs at common law, Into their thirsty tubes be sent Fresh air, by act of parliament.” I . i

Henry Zuttrel.

elevated environs of the metropolis is celebrated for its pure and invigorating qualities, being placed above the fogs of the plain, and removed from smoky and contaminated atmosphere. The height of the Norwood hills, for example is 390 feet above the sea-level at low water; and thus enjoys pre-eminent salubrity.

What is often called Fog, which darkens the metropolis in winter, is, in reality, the smoke of millions of coal-fires, which are much increased in very cold weather. To prevent this, a Correspondent of the Times recommends this simple plan:—Before you throw on coals, pull all the fire to the front of the grate towards the bars, fill up the cavity at the back with the cinders or ashes, which will be found under the grate, and then throw on the coals. The gas evolved in the process of roasting the coals will then be absorbed by the cinders—will render them, in an increased degree, combustible. The smoke will thus be burnt, and a fine glowing, smokeless fire will be the result. This rule should be enforced from the kitchen upwards.

FORTIFICATIONS.

THE defence of the City of London by the wall built by our later Eoman colonists has been already described. (See City Walls and Gates, p. 233.) In later times, the metropolis had again to be fortified.

During the Civil Wars, in 1642, the Parliament ordered that trenches and ramparts should be made near the highways leading to the City, and in different parts about London and Westminster. These Fortifications consisted of a strong earthen rampart, flanked with bastions, redoubts, &c, surrounding the whole City and its liberties, including Southwark. In Tyburn-road, in 1643, there were three forts erected—viz., a redoubt, with two flanks, near St. Giles’s Pound; a small fort at the east end of the road; and a large fort, with four half bulwarks, across the road opposite to Wardour-street. From The Perfect Diurnal of this period, we gather that many thousands of men, women, and servants assisted in the works; as did also a great company of the Common Council, and other chief men of the City; and the Trained Bands, with spades, shovels, and pickaxes; likewise feltmakers, cappers, shoemakers, and porters, to the number of many thousands, assisted in raising the defences.

Upon the site of Mount-street was the fort of ” Oliver’s Mount;” and on the ground now occupied by Hamilton-place at Hyde-park-corner was a large fort with four bastions.

” From ladies down to oyster-wenches, Labour’d like pioneers in trenches.”

Butler’s Hudibras, Part ii. canto 2. The women, and even the ladies of rank and fortune, not only encouraged the men, but worked with their own hands. Lady Middlesex, Lady Foster, Lady Anne Walker, and Mrs. Dunch, have been particularly celebrated for their activity.—Dr. Nash’s Notes.

There are in existence drawings of London Fortifications ascribed to Hollar, and Captain John Eyre of Oliver Cromwell’s own regiment, dated 1643 ; but they are not, by competent judges, regarded as genuine. The latter have been etched.

The Parliamentary Fortifications of London are described in Maitland’s History; a Plan of the City and Suburbs, 1642 and 1643, was engraved by George Vertue, 1738; and a small Plan of the same works appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine, a few years afterwards.

During the last Civil War, a Fortification was erected at the Brill Farm, near Old St. Pancras Church, where, 120 years later, Somers Town was built; a view of it is engraved.— Notes and Queries, No. 230.

FOUNDLING HOSPITAL (THE),

IN Guilford-street, was established by Royal Charter, granted in 1739 to Thomas Coram (master of a trading vessel), ” for the reception, maintenance, and education of exposed and deserted young children,” in a hospital erected ” after the example of France, Holland, and other Christian countries.” This shows that Coram contemplated the indiscriminate admission of all foundlings, as is the case in the above countries; and such was the practice up to the commencement of the present century. The Governors first opened a house in Hatton-garden, on March 25, 1740-1; and any person bringing a child, rang the bell at the inner door, and waited to hear if the infant was returned from disease or at once received, no question whatever being asked as to whom the child belonged, or whence it was brought; and when the full number of children had been taken in, a notice of ” The House is full” was affixed over the door : often there were 100 children offered, when only 20 could be admitted; riots ensued, and thenceforth the women balloted for admission by drawing balls out of a bag.

The present Hospital was built by Jacobson; and the children, 600 in number, were removed there in 1745, when the expenses of the establishment were more than five

times the amount of the income. The Governors afterwards applied to Parliament, who voted them 10,000Z., and sanctioned the general admission of children, the establishment of country hospitals, &c* A basket was hung at the gate of the hospital in London, in which the children were deposited, after ringing a bell to give notice to the officers in attendanee.-j- On June 2nd, 1756, the first day, 117 children were thus received. In 1757 printed bills were posted in the streets apprising the public of their privilege. The consequences were lamentable: prostitution was greatly increased by this easy means of disposing of illegitimate offspring; and from the want of means of rearing so many children, the greater number died: of 14,934 children received in three years and ten months, 10,389 perished. At length, in 1760, this indiscriminate admission was discontinued by Act of Parliament, the legislature undertaking to support all the children who had been already received at its suggestion. Still, so late as 1795 the practice of admitting children without inquiry, on payment of 1001., had not become extinct; but it was abolished in 1801.

Hogarth, one of the earliest ” Governors and Guardians,” greatly assisted his friend Captain Coram, whose full-length portrait he painted and presented to the Hospital, with other pictures. These were shown to the public, and became very attractive; and out of this success grew the first Exhibition of the Royal Academy, in the Adelphi, in the year 1760. The painters often met at the Hospital; the exhibition of their pictures drew daily crowds of spectators, in their splendid equipages; and a visit to the Foundling became the most fashionable morning lounge of the reign of George II. The grounds in front of the Hospital were a favourite promenade; and brocaded silks, gold-headed canes, and laced three-cornered (Egham, Staines, and Windsor) hats formed a gay bevy in Lamb’s-Conduit-fields.

The pictures represent the state of British art previously to the patronage of West by George III. In the collection is Hogarth’s March to Finchley, and Moses brought to Pharaoh’s Daughter; Dr. Mead, by Allan Ramsay; Handel, by Kneller; Lord Dartmouth, by Sir Joshua Reynolds; Views of the Foundling and St. George’s Hospitals, by Richard Wilson; the Charter-House (Sutton’s Hospital), by Gainsborough; Chelsea and Bethlem Hospitals, by Haytley; Christ’s Hospital, St. Thomas’s and Greenwich Hospitals, by Wale; a bas-relief by Rysbrack; a bust of Handel, by Roubiliac; and a presumed original portrait of Shakspeare.

The Chapel has an altar-piece (Christ presenting a little Child), painted by West. At the suggestion of Handel, the musical service has been a source of great profit to the Hospital funds. (See Chapels, p. 210.) Dr. Burney attempted to found an ” Academy of Music” on this basis, just as an Academy of Arts had been raised; but the project failed. Several blind children, who had been received into the Hospital during the indiscriminate admission, were trained as a choir. Mr. Grenville, the organist; Mr. Printer, Miss Thetford, and Jenny Freer, singers, were all blind foundlings.

Coram is buried in the vaults. Here also rest several benefactors, including Lord Chief-Justice Tenterden, whose bust is at the eastern entrance to the chapel: some verses written by his Lordship are sung at the Festival of the Governors. Upon the lodges are two characteristic bas-relief medallions, nicely executed.

From 1760, the Institution ceased to be a hospital for foundlings—

” A race unknown, At doors expos’d, whom matrons call their own.”— Dryden. Unfortunately, the name has been retained: hence great misapprehension in the public mind as to the present objects and purposes of the Charity. The present practice of admitting children requires that they be illegitimate; that the mother have borue a good character previous to her misfortune; and that she be poor and have no relations able or willing to maintain her child. There are other conditions enforced by the Governors; their benevolent object being, ” to hide the shame of the mother, as well as to preserve the life of the child,” and dismiss her from the Hospital with the charge to

* Branch establishments were opened in the country; and at one of them (Ackworth, in Yorkshire) was made cloth, in suits of which several of the artist-patrons appeared at the Festival of 1761. Another branch Hospital was atAylesbury : of this John Wilkes (M.P. for that borough) was appointed Treasurer; but when he left the kingdom in 1764, his accounts were deficient:

f An aged banker in the north of England, received into the Hospital, being desirous of ascertaining his origin, all the information afforded by the books of the establishment was, that he was put into the basket at the gate naked.

“sin no more.” There are several eloquent defences of the objects of the Hospital. Sterne preached a sermon for the Charity in 1761; and the Bev. Sydney Smith was one of the appointed preachers.

There are at present 600 children supported by the Charity, from extreme infancy to the age of fifteen ; the Governors have not the privilege of presenting children, after the manner of other establishments, the claim for admission depending upon the proven misery of the case. The general health of the children within the walls of the Hospital is remarkably good; indeed, the building occupies one of the healthiest sites in London. At an apprenticeable age, the girls are put out to domestic service, and the boys to trades.

The qualification of a Governor is a donation of 501. The revenue of the Hospital is principally derived from the improved value of the Lamb’s-Conduit estate (56 acres), which the Governors purchased as a site for the Hospital, in 1741, for the sum of 5500£., collected by benefactions and legacies ; when the Charity bought the whole estate, not because they required it, but because the Earl of Salisbury, its owner, would not sell any fractional part of it. As London increased, it approached this property; and the ground is now mostly covered with squares and streets of houses, the ground-rents producing an annual income equal to the purchase-money! The Governors have likewise established a Benevolent Fund, for the relief of aged and destitute persons who were inmates of the Hospital when infants. (See Memoranda of the Foundling Hospital, by John Brownlow, Secretary, third edition, 1865.) A stone portrait-statue of Coram, Calder Marshall, sculptor, is placed upon the central pier of the entrance-gates.

FOUNTAINS.

LONDON had, until lately, in comparison with Continental cities, but few decorative Fountains, of ” the nature that sprinkleth or spouteth water.” Early in the last century, however, the Fountains were more numerous. Hatton (1708) mentions in Privy Garden, at Somerset House, Middle Temple, Lincoln’s Inn, and King’s-square, ” the most publick ones.” The court-yards and gardens of mansions had also their fountains: Montague House was celebrated for them. The courts of the Companies’ Halls and City-merchants’ houses boasted of their fountains, but few of which remain. The private garden of Drapers’ Hall had a basin, with a fountain and statue.

Old Somerset House had its geometrical water-garden and fountain.

Whitehall had its fountains; and Queen Elizabeth had a cascade made to play in her gardens, which, when touched by a distant spring, sprinkled all who approached it.

The King’s (Soho) Square fountain had in the middle of the basin a stone statue of Charles II. in armour, on a pedestal enriched with crowns and foliage; on the four sides of the base were as many figures, with inscriptions, of the Thames, Severn, Tyne, and Humber rivers, spouting water. The statue of Charles remains, but the basin has been filled up, and is now a flower-garden.

St. James’s-square had in its centre, in 1720, a basin with a jet of water 15 feet high; the basin was filled from York-buildings, was 6 or 7 feet deep, and 150 feet in diameter, and upon it was kept a pleasure-boat: the site is now occupied by an equestrian statue of William III.

The fountain was a popular ornament of our old tea-gardens : Bagnigge Wells had harge Wella curious specimen—half fountain, half grotto ; and the fountain lingered among the cool delights of Vauxhall Gardens to the last.

Kensington Gardens had a lofty sculptured fountain in the basin opposite the palace; but here, and in the Parks, the jets-d’eau were, until lately, tasteless and unornamental.

In the middle of New-square, Lincoln’s Inn, was a fluted Corinthian column, and a clock with three dials near its vertex; and at each angle of the pedestal was a Cupid blowing water through a short twisted shell. In the Benchers’ Garden, Lincoln’s Inn, in the centre of a basin, was the figure of a mermaid rising out of reeds, with a lofty jet of water.

The fountain in Fountain-court, Middle Temple, rises from a marble-bordered basin, and in Hatton’s time was kept ” in so good order as always to force its stream to a vast and almost incredible altitude. It is fenced with timber palisades, constituting a quadrangle, wherein grow several lofty trees, and without are walks extending on every side of the quadrangle, all paved with Purbeck, very pleasant and delightful.” The timber palisades have given way to iron railing; the jet was half-inch, and threw the

water 10 feet high, and the effect of its sound and sparkle through the trees was very refreshing. Miss Landon has left a poem of pensive beauty, commencing thus:—

” The fountain’s low singing is heard on the wind, Like a melody bringing sweet fancies to mind; Some to grieve, some to gladden: around them they cast The hopes of the morrow, the dreams of the past. Away in the distance is heard the vast sound, From the streets of the city that compass it round, Like the echo of fountains or ocean’s deep call: Yet that fountain’s low singing is heard over all.”

A more decorated design has been substituted for the formal jet.

In the ornamental garden adjoining the Bank (of England) Parlour is a stone basin, with a jet of water 20 feet high; already described at p. 30.

The pair of fountains and basins in Trafalgar square are the largest works of the kind in the metropolis. They were designed by Sir C. Barry, R.A., and executed in Peterhead, granite by M’Donald and Leslie, Aberdeen. Around each base are four dolphins’ heads and fins, supporting a large flat vase and a pedestal, with a smaller vase, in the centre of which is the jet whence the water is thrown up; while a flat stream issues from each of the dolphins’ mouths. The water is supplied from two Artesian wells, one in Orange-street, 300 feet deep, and the other in front of the National Gallery, 395 feet, connected at 170 feet depth by a tunnel to contain 70,000 gallons of water; the wells and tunnel at rest holding about 122,000 gallons. The wells are worked, the jets of the fountains thrown, and the water otherwise supplied, by a large Cornish pumping steam-engine, and a small inverted direct-action engine: outlay 9000/.; annual rent 500/.; engineers, Easton and Amos, Southwark. The contract for ” spouting water” is thirteen hours per day in summer, and in winter seven hours; the height of the jets varies with the weather, from 25 to 40 feet from the ground ; supply, 500 gallons per minute; to the Treasury, Admiralty, Houses of Parliament, and otherternt, and public offices, 100 gallons per minute.

Such were the original works. In 1862 was added to each of the semicircular bays of the basins a group of jets, consisting of a centre and 16 surrounding it. Thus there are 68 jets, throwing 300 gallons per minute, rising from the surface of the basins. Within each is an octagon, from each angle of which a jet throws the water 20 feet high into the upper basin of the central fountain. These 8 jets throw 200 gallons per minute, and their curve is about 30 feet in length. Here are again two inferior squares surrounding the central group, and from each of the angles a jet is thrown outwards, crossing those from the octagon, rising 20 feet, and curving about 17 feet: these throw together 200 gallons per minute. There are also 8 feather jets, which throw up 200 gallons per minute, and form a display resembling the Prince of Wales’s Feathers. The whole may be played at once, in not less than 25 different continuations or changes. It has been the fashion to abuse the designs of these fountains, without making due allowance for the cause—the insufficiency of the sum voted for their erection, and desirable decorative character.

Hitherto, fountains had, in our time, been mostly ornamental, but they have of late been adapted for Drinking purposes, to promote temperance and sanitary benefits.

The first Drinking-fountain set up in the metropolis wa9 that at St. Sepulchre’s, the parish in which, nearly three centuries ago, Lamb, citizen and clothworker, and sometime gentleman of the chamber to Henry VIII., “founded a faire conduit and a standard, with a cocke, at Holborn-bridge, to convey thence the waste.” The conduit itself was in the fields—now Lamb’s-Conduit-street. (See Conduits, p. 288.)

The Metropolitan Free Drinking-Fountains Association has set up in various quarters, by means of a public subscription, fountains in localities where they are most required. As many as 8000 persons have been known to drink at a single fountain in one day; and more than 30,000 have been estimated to drink daily in the summer at 140 fountains. Many of the contributions to this good work of the Association exhibit great liberality on the part of the donors, as well as an occasional tinge of eccentricity. Cattle-troughs and dog-troughs have been added to the fountains. Benevolent individuals have contributed to their own localities. Thus, we read of 60/. from a lady in Brompton, and 100/. from a gentleman in Pimlico, for the two fountains just opened by the Society

outside the Kensington Museum, and in the high road leading to Battersea Park. A gentleman in Fifeshire offered to pay the cost of a fountain near the Kensington Potteries, where, by the way, water was always wanted; and a lady at St. John’s-wood sent to the Society a donation for the new cattle-trough just fixed in Finsbury-square. One of the Reports of the Society states that a lady, who requested tbat her name should be kept secret, sent 1000Z. to the treasurer; and that an Indian Prince furnished a similar sum to be expended upon a fountain in Hyde Park. Mrs. Rosetta Waddell, amongst other bequests, left 500Z. for the erection of a fountain in Warwick-square, Newgate-street. Mr. Gurney, the founder of the Association, contributed between 300<!. and 400Z. yearly towards the objects which it had in view. The Association requires 1000Z. a-year to keep one hundred fountains in repair.

Some otaierif”> f these drinking-fountains, erected at the cost of private individuals, are admirable works of art, as well as acts of public spirit. Sir Morton Peto has erected on Islington-green a statue of Sir Hugh Myddelton, with two fountains, and the New River Company supply the water gratis; and the Company, in 1859, set up a fountain against their own wall. In the above year, the Association announced seventy sites, whereon they had erected fountains, or were under engagement to erect.

The Government have erected, very appropriately, drinking-fountains in the Parks. The largest and most important is placed in the geometrical garden in Hyde Park, learly opposite Grosvenor-gate. This is a simple and massive fountain, with a group of a boy and dolphin, in Carrara marble, 6 feet high, sculptured by Alexander Munro. It is placed on a block of red granite chiselled to represent a rock. The basin, of polished Sicilian marble, is nine feet in diameter, and is believed to be the largest basin of a single block of marble in England. This rests on a square plinth of Dove marble, leading up to which are three circular steps in grey granite, the lowest step being eighteen feet in diameter. The whole work is upwards of twelve feet in height. The group represents a sturdy boy wrestling with a dolphin; the water issuing in jets from the nostrils of the dolphin.

On the south side of St. James’s Park, near Storey’s-gate, backed by trees, is a group, sculptured by R. Jackson, of a boy seated, with a pitcher at his side, and holding a scallop-shell as if to dip into the pitcher, and offer its contents to one towards whom his head is slightly turned. On the front of the granite pedestal is a relief of bulrushes and other water-plants, and from the mouth of a dolphin the water trickles into a conch-shell.

In the Regent’s Park, a drinking-fountain has been erected from the designs of R. Westmacott, R.A.: it consists of a polished red granite column, on which is a female figure in bronze; the water flows from the bills of two bronze swans, at the base of the column, into a large tazza of black enamelled slate.

The Ornamental Waterworks, in Kensington Gardens, contain two large fountains, with some good sculpture, by John Thomas.

In Victoria Park, at the Hackney entrance, is a drinking-fountain, of unusual dimensions and costliness, a present from Miss Burdett Coutts. It is a Gothic octagonal structure, crowned by a cupola, nearly 60 feet high; the shafts and bases are of polished granite. Within are marble figures in niches, which pour water from vases into basins beneath; vases for flowers, and coloured marbles, complete the decoration : cost, above 50O0Z.; designer, H. A. Darbishire.

Another large and important design is the Buxton Memorial Drinking Fountain, at the comer of Great George-street and St. Margaret’s Churchyard, Westminster. The base is octagonal, having open arches on the eight sides, supported on clustered shafts of polished Devonshire marble around a large central shaft, with four massive granite basins. Surmounting the pinnacles at the angles of the octagon are eight figures of bronze, representing different rulers of England: the Britons represented by Caractacus, the Romans by Constantine, the Danes by Canute, the Saxons by Alfred, the Normans by William the Conqueror, and so on, ending with Queen Victoria. The following is the inscription:—

” This fountain is intended as a memorial of those Members of Parliament who, with Mr. Wilber-foree, advocated the Abolition of the British Slave Trade, achieved in 1807; and of those Members of Parliament who, with Sir T. Fowell Buxton, advocated the Emancipation of the Slaves throughout the

British dominions, achieved in 1834. It was designed and built, by Charles Buxton, M.P., in 1865, the year of the final extinction of the Slave Trade and of the Abolition of Slavery in the United States.”

The upper portion is covered with plaques of iron, with raised patterns, giving shadow, and enamelled coloured surfaces. Superintendent architect, S. Teulon; stonework and sculpture, hy Earp; cost, upwards of 1200J., exclusive of the water supply, undertaken by the Drinking-Fountains Association.

Another memorial monumental fountain has been erected in Guildhall-yard, by the vestry of the united parishes of St. Lawrence Jewry, and St. Mary Magdalene, Milk-street, to the memory of the benefactors of these parishes. This memorial, designed in the Pointed style of architecture which prevailed in Italy during the fourteenth century, is 9 ft. square at the base, and 32 ft. in height. The materials are Portland stone, and Bath stone, with polished granite shafts. On the east and west sides are statues of the patron saints of the two parishes; and on the other two sides are marble slabs, on which are engraved the names of the benefactors. On the east side, facing Guildhall-yard, is a bronze bas-relief of Moses striking the Rock, an admirable production, which forms the drinking-fountain; cost has been 665Z.; designed by John Eobinson, architect; statues and bas-relief are by Joseph Durham, R.A., sculptor.

Fountains are useful ornaments of markets. At Billingsgate is a cast-iron fountain, with a basin about 15 feet in diameter, and a stem of rushes whence the water rises : and around the basin-lip he twelve dolphins, which discharge water for the use of the market-people.

FREEMASONS’ LODGES.

OUR glance at Freemasonry in the metropolis dates from two centuries back (1666), when Sir Christopher Wren was nominated Deputy-Grand-Master under Earl Rivers, and distinguished himself above all his predecessors in legislating for the body at large, and in promoting the interests of the Lodges under his immediate care. He was Master of the St. Paul’s Lodge, which, during the rebuilding of the Cathedral after the Great Fire, assembled at the Goose and Gridiron, in St. Paul’s Churchyard, and is now the Lodge of Antiquity, acting by immemorial prescription, and regularly presided at its meetings for upwards of eighteen years. During his presidency, he presented the Lodge with three mahogany candlesticks, beautifully carved, and the trowel and mallet which he used in laying the first stone of the Cathedral, June 21,1675.

During the building of the City, Lodges were held by the fraternity in different places, and several new ones constituted, which were attended by the leading architects and best builders of the day, and amateur brethren of the mystic craft. In 1674 Earl Rivers resigned his grand-mastersbip, and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, was elected to the dignified office. He left the care of the Grand Lodge and thePauLodge a brotherhood to the Deputy-Grand-Master Wren and his Wardens. During the short reign of James II., who tolerated no secret societies but the Jesuits, the Lodges were but thinly attended; but in 1685 Sir Christopher Wren was elected Grand-Master of the Order, and nominated Gabriel Cibber, the sculptor, and Edward Strong, the master mason of St. Paul’s and other of the City churches, as Grand-Wardens,

Many of the oldest Lodges are in the neighbourhood of St. Paul’s; but the headquarters of Freemasonry is the Grand Hall in the rear of Freemasons’ Tavern, 62, Queen-street, Lincoln’s-inn-fields: it was commenced May 1, 1775, from the designs of Thomas Sandby, R.A., Professor of Architecture in the Royal Academy : 5000/. was raised by a Tontine towards the cost; and the Hall was opened and dedicated in solemn form, May 23,1776; Lord Petre, Grand-Master. ” It is the first house built in this country with the appropriate symbols of Masonry, and with the suitable apartments for the holding of Lodges, the initiating, passing, raising, and exalting of brethren.” (Elmes.) Here are held the Grand and other Lodges, which hitherto assembled in the Halls of the City Companies.

Freemasons’ Hall, as originally decorated, is shown in a print of the annual procession of Freemasons’ Orphans, by T. Stothard, R.A. It is a finely-proportioned room, 92 feet by 43 feet, and 60 feet high; and will hold 1500 persons : it was re-decorated in 1S46: the ceiling and coving are richly decorated -, above the principal entrance is

a large gallery, with an organ; and at the opposite end is a coved recess, flanked by a pair of fluted Ionic columns, and Egyptian doorways; the sides are decorated with fluted Ionic pilasters ; and throughout the room in the frieze are masonic emblems, gilt upon a transparent blue ground. In the intercolumniations are full-length royai and other Masonic portraits, including that of the Duke of Sussex, as Grand-Master, b/ Sir W. Beechey, R.A. In the end recess is a marble statue of the Duke of Sussex, executed for the Grand Lodge, by E. H. Baily, R.A. The statue is seven feet six inches high, and the pedestal six feet; the Duke wears the robes of a Knight of the Garter, and the Guelphic insignia; at his side is a small altar, sculptured with Masonic emblems.

Freemasons’ Hall was, however, not reserved for the exclusive use of the Masons. In 1863, the erection of a great Masonic building was decided on; architect, F. P. Cockerell, son of the late Professor Cockerell, R.A.

The front, which is 89 ft. in length, is built entirely of Portland stone. The sculpture, including the four figures representing Wisdom, Fidelity, Charity, and Unity, are executed by W. G. Nicholl. The section, comprising the greater part of the Masonic building, was completed in May, 1866. The old hall is re-embellished in a corresponding style.

St. Paul’s, 604, and St. Peter’s, Westminster, 605, were built by Freemasons. Gundulph, Bishop of Eochester, who built Rochester Castle, and, it is said, the White Tower (of London), governed the Freemasons. Peter of Colechurch, architect of old London Bridge, was Grand-Master. Henry VII., in a lodge of Master Masons, founded his Chapel at Westminster Abbey. Hampton Court Palace was built by Freemasons, as appears from the accounts of the expenses of the fabric extant among the public records of London. Sir Thomas Gresham, who planned the Royal Exchange, was Grand-rite, was Master: as was also Inigo Jones, who built the Banqueting-House, Whitehall; Ashburnham House, Westminster, &c. Sir Christopher Wren, Grand-Master, founded St. Paul’s with his Lodge of Masons, and the trowel and the mallet used are preserved. Covent Garden Theatre was founded, 1808, by the Prince of Wales, Grand-Master; and the Grand Lodge. Sir Francis Palgrave, however, maintains that ” the connexion between the operative masons and a convivial society of good fellows—who, in the reign of Queen Anne, met at the ‘ Goose and Gridiron, in St. Paul his Church-yard’—appears to have been finally dissolved about the beginning of the eighteenth century. From an inventory of the contents of the chest of the Worshipful Company of Masons and Citizens of London, it appears not long since to have contained a book wrote on parchment, or bound or stitched in parchment, containing 113 annals of the antiquity, rise, and progress of the art and mystery of masonry. But this document is not now to be found.—Sir F. Palgrave, Edinburgh Review, April, 1839.

There is in existence, and known to persons who take an interest in the History of Freemasonry, a copperplate List of Freemasons’ Lodges in London in the reign of Queen Anne, with a representation of the Signs, and some Masonic Ceremony, in which are eleven figures of well-dressed men, in the costume of the above period. There were then 129 Lodges, of which 86 were in London, 36 in English cities, and 7 abroad.

According to the books of the Grand Lodge of England, there are 63 Masonic Lodges in the City, distributed as follows: Albion Tavern, Aldersgate-street, 7; London Tavern, Bishopsgate, 9 ; Radley’s Hotel, Bridge-street, 9; Anderton’s Hotel, Fleet-street, 8: Ship and Turtle, Leadenhall-street, 8; London Coffee House, Ludgate-hill, 5; Masons’ Hall, Basinghall-street, 3; Masons’ Rooms, Little Bell-alley, Moorgate-street, 1; Cheshire Cheese, Crutched-friars, 1; Falcon Tavern, Fetter-lane, 1; and Dick’s Tavern, Fleet-street, 1. Formerly the most ancient lodge in the City, and which dates from time immemorial, was the “Lodge of Antiquity” (No. 2), but having removed from the Goose and Gridiron, St. Paul’s Churchyard, to the Freemasons’ Hall, Great Queen-street, the Royal Athelstan (No. 19), became the most ancient City Lodge, while the most modern are the City of London (901,) and Engineers (902). In the City there are also fourteen Lodges of Instruction. There are 333 Chapters of Royal Arch Masons, 12 of which are in the City.

” Three explanations, widely different, have been given of the origin and progress of Freemasonry. Some see in Freemasonry a secret system deriving its teaching from Egyptian mysteries, preserved through the night of history. Others see in it a secret body, exclusive in its formation, and passing through the world irrespective of the polities and religion of all countries, but advocating brotherly love and inculcating moral duties. There are others who, having regard to the principle of cause and effect, see in it a speculative brotherhood, the legitimate and lineal descendants of the operative guilds which flourished in the Middle and early ages. Whichever explanation or theory may be true, one thing is indubitable—namely, that the origin and duration of Freemasonry together furnish a most wonderful fact in the history of mankind. It is universal in its scope and expansive and tolerant in its tendency; it rejects all partisan theories and condemns all sectarian animosities ; it forms a nucleus to all the nations of the world, and aims at linking all mankind in enduring friendship by inculcating moral responsibility and social duty, loyalty, peace, and good citizenship, and the relief of human sorrow and affliction.”—Rev. A. F. Woodford, G ad. Woodfrand Chaplain.

FROSTS, AND FROST-FAIRS ON THE THAMES.

1281-2. ” From this Christmas till the Purification of Our Lady, there was such a frost and snow, aB no man living could remember the like: wherethrough, five arches of London Bridge, and all Rochester Bridge, were borne downe and carried away by the streame; and the like happened to many bridges in England. And, not long after, men passed over the Thames, between Westminster and Lambeth, dry-shod.”— Stow, edited by Howes, 1631.

1410. ” Thys yere was the grete frost and ise and the most sharpest winter that

ever man sawe, and it duryd fourteen wekes, so that men myght in dyvers places both goo and ryde over the Temse.”— Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London.

1434-5. The Thames frozen from below London Bridge to Gravesend, from Dec. 25 to Feb. 10, when ” the merchandise which came to the Thames mouth was carried to London by land.”— Stow.

1506. ” Such a sore snowe and a frost that men myght goo with carttes over the Temse and horses, and it lastyd tylle Candlemas.”— Chronicle of the Grey Friars of London.

1515. The Thames frozen, when carriages passed over the ice from Lambeth to Westminster.

1564, Dec. 21. Stow and Holinshed state that on New-year’s eve—

” People went over and alongst the Thames on the ise from London Bridge to “Westminster. Some plaied at the foot ball as boldlie there, as if it had beene on the drie land; diverse of the Court being then at Westminster, shot dailie at prickes set upon the Thames; and the people, both men and women, went on the Thames in greater numbers than in anie street of the City of London. On the third daie of January at night it began to thaw, and on the fifth there was no ise to be seene between London Bridge and Lambeth, which sudden thaw caused great floods and high waters, that bare downe bridges and houses and drowned manie people in England.”

1608. Great frost described in Howes’s continuation of Stow :

” The 8th of December began a hard frost, and continued until the 15th of the same, and then thawed ; and the 22d of December it began againe to freeze violently, so as divers persons went halfe-way over the Thames upon the ice; and the 30th of December, at every ebbe, many people went quite over the Thames in divers places, and so continued from that day until the 3d of January.” From Jan. 10th to 15th, the ice became firm, and men, women, and children went boldly upon it; some shot at pvickes, others bowled and danced, and many ” set up booths and standing upon the ice as fruitsellers, victuallers, that sold beere and wine, shoemakers, and a barber’s tent:” the ice lasting until Feb. 2. There is a very rare Tract, describing this frost, mentioned by Gongh, in his British. ‘Topography, vol i. p. 731, which has a woodcut representation of it, with London Bridge in the distance; it is entitled— ” Cold Doings in London, except it then, excebe at the Lottery,” &c, 4to, 1608.

1609. Great frost commenced in October, and lasted four months. The Thames frozen, and heavy carriages driven over it.

1683-4. From the beginning of December until the 5th of February, frost “congealed the river Thames to that degree, that another city, as it were, was erected thereon; where,by the great number of streets and shops, with their rich furniture, it represented a great fair, with a variety of carriages, and diversions of all sorts; and near Whitehall, a whole ox was roasted on the ice.” (Maitland.) Evelyn, who was an eye-witness of the scene, thus describes it, Jan. 24, 1684:—

” The frost continuing more and more severe, the Thames before London was still planted with boothes in formal streetes, all sorts of trades and shops furnished, and all full of commodities, even to a printing presse, where the people and ladies tooke a fancy to have their names printed on the Thames; this humour tooke so universally, that ’twas estimated the printer gained 51. a day for printing a line onely, at sixpence a name, besides what he got by ballads, &c. Coaches plied from Westminster to the Temple, and from several other staires, to and fro, as in the streetes; sheds, sliding with skeetes, and bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet-plays and interludes, cookes, tipling, and other lewd places; so that it seemed to be a bacchanalian triumph, or carnival on the water.”

King Charles II. visited these diversions, and even had his name printed on the ice, with those of several other personages of the royal family. Mr. Upcott possessed a specimen—a quarter of a sheet of coarse Dutch paper; within a type border, were the names of—

Charles, King.

.lull’s, LlUKK.

Kaihehine, Queen. Mary, Dutchess. Anne, 1’hincess. George, Prince. Hans in K elder.

London : Printed by G. Croom, on the Ice, on the River of Thames, January 31,1684.

Feb. 6, the day after the break-up of this great frost, Charles II. died.

In some curious verses, entitled ” Thamasis’s Advice to the Painter, from her frigid zone,” &c, ” printed by G. Croom, on the river of Thames,” occurs:

” To the Print-house go, Where Men the Art of Printing soon do know; Where; for a Teaster, you may have your Jfam* Printed, hereafter for to show the same: And sure, in former Ages, ne’er was found A Press to print, where men so oft were dround!”

The principal scene of this ” Blanket-Fair” was opposite the Temple-stairs, as we see in a pencil and Indian-ink sketch, supposed hy Thomas Wyote, dated “Monday, February the 4th, 1683-4:” in front are various groups of figures, and a line of tents; ” Temple-street” stretches across the Thames. This drawing, with some prints, &c, illustrative of this frost, is in the Crowle Pennant.

1688-9. Great frost, Dec. 20 to Feb. 6 : pools frozen eighteen inches thick, and the Thames’ ice covered with streets of shops, bull-baiting, shows, and tricks; hackney-coaches plied in the ice-roads, and a coach and six horses was driven from Whitehall ahnost to London-bridge ; yet in two days all the ice disappeared.

1709. The Thames again frozen over, and some persons crossed it on the ice: in the Crowle Pennant is a coarse bill, within a woodcut border of rural subjects, containing, ‘Mr. John Heaton, printed on the Thames at Westminster, Jan. the 7th, 1709.”

1715. Severe frost, from the end of November until Feb. 9 following, when the sports of 1683 were all renewed : in the Crowle Pennant is a copperplate view, with a line of tents from Temple-stairs, and another marked ” Thames-street ¦” ” Printed on the Thames, 1715-16 f and above it, ** Frost Fair on the River Thames.”

1739-40. Dec. 25, another severe frost: the Thames floated with rocks and shoals of ice; and when they fixed, represented a snowy field, everywhere rising in masses and hills of ice and snow. Several artists made sketches; tents and printing-presses were set up, and a complete Frost Fair was again held upon the river, over which multitudes walked, though some fell victims to their rashness. It was in this fair that Doll, the noted pippin-woman, lost her life :

” Doll every day had walk’d these treacherous roads; Her neck grew warp’d beneath autumnal loads Of various fruit; she now a basket bore; That head, alas ! shall basket bear no more. Each booth she frequent past, in quest of gain. And boys with pleasure heard her thrilling strain. Ah, Doll! all mortals must resign their breath, And industry itself submit to death! The cracking crystal yields; she sinks, she dies,— Her head, chopt off from her lost shoulders, flies; Pippins, she cried, but death her voice confounds, And pip, pip, pip, along the ice resounds.”— Gay’s Trivia, b. ii.

Another remarkable character, ” Tiddy Doll,” died in the same place and manner. (J. T. Smith.) In the Crowle Pennant are several prints of this Frost and Ice Fair. Some vintners in the Strand bought a large ox in Smithfield, to be roasted whole on the ice; and one Hodgeson, a butcher in St. James’s Market, claimed the privilege of felling or knocking down the beast as a right inherent in his family, his father having knocked down the ox roasted on the river in the Great Frost, 1684; as himself did that roasted in 1715, near Hungerford Stairs: Hodgeson to wear a laced cambric apron, a silver-handled steel, and a hat and feathers. The breaking-up of this frost was an odd scene; the booths, shops, and huts being carried away by the swell of the waters and the ice separating.

1768. A violent frost, Jan. 1-21, when the piles of London Bridge sterlings were much damaged by the ice; on Jan. 5, a French vessel was wrecked upon a sterling, and two others were driven through the centre arch, losing their main-masts, and carrying away the lamps from the parapet.

1789, Jan. 8. The Thames frozen over, several purl-booths erected, and many thousands of persons crossed upon the ice from Tower-wharf to the opposite shore. The frost had then l a st had asted six weeks. No sooner had the Thames acquired a sufficient consistency, than booths, turnabouts, &c., were erected; the puppet-shows, wild-beasts, &c, were transported from every adjacent village; and the watermen broke in the ice close to the shore, and erected bridges, with toll-bars, to make every passenger pay a halfpenny for getting to the ice. A large pig was roasted on one of the roads, and a young

bear hunted on the ice near Rotherhithe; and the printing-press was erected, as usual, to commemorate the strange scene. Vast quantities of boiling water were every morning poured upon the bridge water-works, to set the wheels in motion, and twenty-five horses were used daily to remove the ice from around them; while at Blackfriars the masses of ice were 18 feet thick. The sudden breaking-up of the ice, with the rush of the people to the shores, at night, was a fearful scene. A vessel lying off Rotherhithe, fastened by a cable and anchor to a beam of a public-house, in the night veered about and pulled the house to the ground, killing five sleeping inmates.

1811, January. The Thames frozen over.

1813-14. Great frost, commenced Dec. 27, with a thick fog, followed by two days’ heavy fall of snow. During nearly four weeks’ frost, the wind blew almost uninterruptedly from the north and north-east, and the cold was intense. The river was covered with vast heaps of floating ice, bearing piles of snow, which, Jan. 26—29, were floated down, filling the space between London and Blackfriars Bridges; next day, the frost recommenced, and lasted to Feb. 5, uniting the whole into a sheet of ice. Jan. 30, persons walked over it ; and Feb. 1, the unemployed watermen commenced their ice-toll, by which many of them received 61. per day. The Frost Fair now commenced : the street of tents, called the City-road, put forth its gay flags, inviting signs, and music and dancing : a sheep was roasted whole before sixpenny spectators, and the ” Lapland mutton ” sold at a shilling a slice ! Printing-presses were set up, and among other records was printed the following :

Frost Fair.

Amidst the Arts which on the Thames appear To tell the wonders of this icy year Pbujting claims prior place, which at one view Erects a monument of That and You.

Printed on the River Thames, February 4, in the 54th year of the reign of King George III. Anno Domini 1814.

One of the invitations ran thus:

” You that walk here, and do design to tell Your children’s children what this year befell, Come buy this print, and then it will be seen That such a year as this hath seldom been.”

In the Fair were swings, book-stalls, dancing in a barge, suttling-booths, playing at skittles, frying sausages, &c. The ice and snow, in upheaved masses, as a foreground to St. Paul’s and the City, had a striking effect; and the scene, by moonlight, was singularly picturesque. On Feb. 5, the ice cracked, and floated away with booths, printing-presses, &c.; the last document printed being a jeu-de-mot ” to Madame Tabitha Thaw.” Among the memorials is a duodecimo volume, pp. 124, now before useornow bef: it is entitled, ” Frostiana; or, a History of the River Thames in a frozen state, with an Account of the late Severe Frost, &c.; to which is added the Art of Skating. London : Printed and published on the Ice on the River Thames, February 5, 1814, by G. Davis;” the title-page was worked upon a large ice-island between Blackfriars and Westminster Bridges. In the Illustrated London News, No. 138, is an engraving of the Frost Fair of 1814, from a sketch near London Bridge, by Luke Clennell.

FULWOOD’S RENTS,

Fuller’s Rents,” in Holborn, nearly opposite Chancery-lane, is a court, now ‘ meanly inhabited; but was of much better repute in the time of James I., when its possessor, Christopher Fulwood, Esq., resided here. Strype describes it as running up to Gray’s Inn, “into which it has an entrance through the gate” (now closed); “a place of good resort, and taken up by coffee-houses, ale-houses, and houses of entertainment, by reason of its vicinity to Gray’s Inn. On the east side is a handsome open place, with a freestone pavement, and better built, and inhabited by private housekeepers. At the upper end of this court is a passage into the Castle Tavern, a house of considerable trade, as is the Golden Griffin Tavern, on the west side.” Here was John’s, one of the earliest coffee-houses; and adjoining Gray’s Inn gate, on the west side, is a deep-coloured brick house, once Squire’s Coffee-house, whence some of the Spectators are dated: it has been handsome and roomy, with a wide staircase. Within one door of Gray’s Inn was Ned Ward’s (London Spy) punch-house, much frequented by the wits of his day.

For some time before 1699, until his death in 1731, Ward kept this house, which he thus puffs in his London Spy; being a vintner, we may rest assured that he would have penned this in praise of no other but himself:—

” To speak but the truth of my honest friend Ned, The best of all vintners that ever God made; He’s free of the beef, and as free of his bread, And washes both down with his glass of rare red, That tops all the town, and commands a good trade; Such wine as will cheer up the drooping King’s head, And brisk up the soul, though our body’s half-dead; He scorns to draw bad, as he hopes to be paid; And now his name’s up, he may e’en lie abed; For he’ll get an estate—there’s no more to be said.”

The Castle Tavern, mentioned by Strype, was many years kept by Thomas Winter (“Tom Spring”), the pugilist, who died here, August 20, 1851.

About the centre of the east side of Fulwood’s Rents is a curious gabled and projecting house, temp James I. Mr. Archer has engraved a ground-floor room, entirely panelled with oak; the mantelpiece is well carved in oak, with caryatides and arched niches; the ceiling beams are carved in panels; and the entire room is original, except the window. A larger room on the first floor contains another old mantelpiece, very florid. The front of the house is said to be covered with ornament, now concealed by plaster. (Vestiges of Old London, part v.)

Leave a Reply