Shakspere's England; or, Sketches of our Social History in the reign of Elizabeth

Front matter

i SHAKSPEEE'S ENGLAND'; OR, SKETCHES OF OUR SOCIAL HISTORY IN TIIE REIGN OF ELIZABETH. BY G. W. THOENBUKY, AUTHOR OF THE "HISTORY OF THE BUCCANEERS," ETC. ETC. " This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise ; This fortress built by nature for herself, Against infection and the hand of war ; This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall. This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England." Richard H. Act 2., Scene 1. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 1856. London ; Prln'ed by Siorris woode & Co., New-street-Square. CONTENTS OP THE FIRST VOLUME. iNTRODUCTOBT CllAPTBR Page 1

Chapter I. The Streets Of Old London

Ancient and Modern London. — The black Thames and the white Thames. — Suburbs. — Fashion in Drury Lane. — Noblemen. — The Strand. — Gates and Walls. — "Village of St. Giles. —Fleet River. — Moorfields. — Whitehall. — Houses on London Bridge. — Gresham's Exchange. — City Gardens. — Fountains. — City Ta-1 verns. — Bedlam. — Thieves' Quarters. — Prisons. — Localities of Trade. — Wells and Springs. — Celebrated Tradesmen of the Day. — Processions. — Marriages. — Funerals. — Thieves going to Tyburn. — Royal Visits. — Ambassadors. — Pageants. — 'Prentice Riots. — The old Street Cries. — A Citizen's Amusements. — Shops and Penthouses. — Sketch of the Crowds. — Barber and Apothecary. — Characters of the Day. — Street Rows. — Extinct Trades. — Foreign Shops. — Manners of the 'Prentices. - — Apothecary's Shop. — System of Medicine. — Scenes in a Crowd. — Gaoler, Lawyer, and Informer. — The Pawnbroker. — The Barber- Surgeons. — The Tailor's Shop. — Bookseller's Shop. — The Tinket-. — Foreign Workmen. — The Goldsmith — Vintner — Their Frauds. — Colliers. — The Thames Watermen. — The Saddle? a2 CONTENTS OF and Butcher. — Prices. ■ — The Tanner and Shoemaker. — The Chirurgeon. — Puritans' Attacks on the Tricks of Trade. — Have we improved ? - - - - - - Page 1 1 CHAP. II.

THE MANSIONS AND PALACES. Characteristics of the Elizabethan House. — The Chase and Terrace. — Court-Yards. — Fountains. — Bowling-Greens. — Magnificence and Sense of Security. — Their Sanctity and Associations. — Individuality. — Romance. — Seen by Night. ■- Scenes in an old Mansion. — The Hall and Garden. — Fittings. — Tudor Building. — Somersetshire. — Henry VIII.'s Palace at Shene. — His Luxury. — Wolsey and Buckingham. — Existing Elizabethan Houses. — Ornamental Brick Work. — Italian Decoration. — Court Yards. — Oriels. — Cinque Cento. — Architectural Works. — Timber Work. — John Thorpe. — His Works. — Architects of the Age. — Palatial Houses. — Anecdote of Gresham. — James's Reign. — Description of Lord North's House at Kirtling. — Hawstead House. — Apartments of Elizabeth's Palace at Richmond. — Elizabethan Gardens. — Bacon's Description. — Aviaries. — Gardens at Theobald's. — The Gardens at Kenilworth. - - - - - 65 CHAP. HI.

A day's amusement. The Walk in Paul's. — The Ordinary. — Bear Garden and Bartholomew Fair. — Elizabethan Amusements. — Qualifications of a Courtier. — Hardy Training. — Versatility of Character. — Sociality of Elizabethan Life. — No Jealousy of Class. — Distinctions of Class. — The Gallant's Morning. — Promenade in St. Paul's. — Si quis ? Wall. — Serving- Man's Pillar. — Ordinary. — Dinner. — - Theatre. — Seat on the Stage. — Characters in Paul's Walk. — THE EII.ST VOLUME.

V Courtier and Templar. — Country Gentlemen. — Adventurers. — Duke Humphrey's Dinner. — Poor Curates — and Scholars. — Quack Doctor. — The Noise of Paul's. — Exchange of News. — The Lawyer's Pillar. — Thieves. — History of St. Paul's. — Fire. — Paul's Cross. — Poet and Player. — Country Vicar. — Citizen and Wife. — Master. — Description of Paul's Walk. — Varieties of Ordinaries. — Characters. — Manners. — Cards. — Tavern Life. — Parting. — Watches. — Interior of a Prison. — Scenes at City Gates. — Bear Garden. — Baiting. — Names of Bears. — Bear- Baiting at Kenilworth. — Puritans attack the Abuse. — Whipping Blind Bears. — Ape on Horseback. — Allusions to Paris Gardens in Shakspere. — Gaming. — Tricks of Gamesters. — False Dice. — Bowling. — Fleet Prisoners. — Cock-Fighting. — Rules and Max ims. — The Jugglers of the Day. — Head of St. John the Baptist. — Various Tricks. — Banks and his Horse Morocco. — Jugglers' Language. — Bartholomew Fair. — Roast Pig and Bottle Ale. — Ballad Sellers. — Cries and Stalls. — Diversions Kindheart the Dentist. — Tarleton and Cuckoo. — Scenes in the Crowd. — A Tavern. — Stories of the Plague, or " Stop Gallant." — Poor Tutor. — The Apparitor. — Song Seller. — Smoking. — No Allusion to it in Shakspere. — Abuse of it. — Eulogies. — Methods of taking it. — King James's Pamphlet. — Extracts. - - Page 100 CHAP. IV.

THE LAWS OP THE DUELLE. The Sands of Calais. — Fencing Masters. — Frequency of Duelling. — Introduction ofthe Rapier. — Duels at Taverns. — Saviolo's Books. — Causes of Duels. — Challenge. — Conditional Lie. — ■ The Lie in General. — The Foolish Lie. — Proud and Civil Proof. — Causes that stayed Duels. — Time for the Duel. — The Combat. — The Apology. — Morality of the Duellists. — Art of Fence. — Parries. — Terms. — Language of the Schools. - - VI CONTENTS OE CHAP. V. SERVING-MEN AND GENTLEWOMEN. — THE KITCHEN AND THE BUTTERY STILL-ROOM. Shakspere's Abuse of Servants. — Puritan Servants. — French Pages. — Irish running Footmen. — Ordinances. — Horses. — Laws of a Household. — Fines. — The Cook. — The Steward. — Petty Officers of the Court. — Servants' Dinners. — Duties of a Page. — The Serving-Man. — Their Manners. ■ — The Chaplain. — Poor Tutor. — Laneham and his Duties. — An Archbishop's Servants. — Habits of the Jester. — The Dinner. — The Kitchen. — Mythological Pastry. — Cooking. — List of Dishes. — The Royal Diet. — Receipts. — Cock Ale. — The Queen's Dinners. . - Page 201 CHAP. VI.

ELIZABETHAN DIET. Elizabethan Diet. — The Dishes borne in Procession. — The Kitchen — Architecture of the Pastry and Sweetmeats. — Local Dainties. — Curious Dishes. — Drinks. — Calculations of Time in old Cookery Books. — Cock Ale. — The Queen's Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper - - - - - - - -223 CHAP. VII. DRESS. Picturesqueness of Dress. — Distinctions of Classes. — Brilliancy of Colour. — Puritan Outcries. — Vain Queen, vain Nation. — Vanity peculiar Vice of the Day. — Luxury. — Elizabeth's State Dress. — Her New Year Presents. — Allegorical Gowns. — Jewels. — Fans. — Tournament Dresses. — Male Dress. — Doublet and THE FIRST VOLUME. VII Cloak. — Foreign Fashions. — Armour. — Puritan Fables. — The Story of the Devil and the Ruff. — Female Dress. — Hoods and Fardingales. — Cloaks and Shoes. — Hose. — Perfumes. — Sumptuary Laws. — City Dress. — Law Students. — Municipal Dress -.--... page 231 CHAP. VIII.

CHEATS, THIEVES, AND BEGGARS. Elizabethan Thieves, desperate and daring. — Statutes of the Reign. — Severity of Law. — Cock Lorel. — Punishments. — The Egyptians. — Their Dress and Manners. — Moon Men. — Maunderers and Clapper Dudgeons. — Haunts and Festivals. — Gipsy Gangs. — Priests and Kings. — Jugglers. — Oaths and Laws. — Language and Songs. — Orders of Rogues. — Banditti. — Dommerers. — Hookers. — Anecdotes of each. — Tinkers. — Abram Men. — Sham Sores (Poor Tom). — Counterfeit Soldiers. — The Crank. — Story. — Freshwater Mariners. — Fraters. — Palliards. — Horse Stealers. — Rogues par excellence. — The Wild Rogue. — The Upright Man. — The Ruffler. — Female Thieves. — Sham Sick. — The Tavern Bully and Bravo. — The Farmer in Paul's Churchyard. — Cross Biting. — Gamester's Tricks. — The Travelling Conjuror. — The Composition of a Gang. — The Barnacle and his Dupe. — Welsh Men. — The avenging Shoemaker. — Gullgroping. — The Woodpecker and his Crew. — The Eagle and the Deluder. — Gil Bias Tricks. — Ferreting. — Usurers. — Falconers and Poor Scholars. — Jacks of the Clock House. — The Visitor. — The Shifter. — The Rank Riders. —The Horse Tricks of Smithfield. — Lamb Pie. — The Jingler. — The Jacks in the Box. — Tricks on Carriers. — Faun Guests. — Drappage. — Cut- Purses. — Foster's Lift. — Bat-Fowling. — Chop-Chain. — Spoon Dropping. — Stone Carrying. — Country Gentlemen at Paul's. — Cheap Travellers. — Quack Salvers. — Porters and their Thefts. — The Parasite. — Miscellaneous Tricks. — Courtesans. — Cruel Laws. — Burleigh and the Watchmen. — The Arrests. — Tricks of the CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

Bailiffs. — The Prisons and their Wards. — Gaolers' Cruelties. — Escapes. — The Prison Council. — Beadles and Watchmen. — Voluntary Prisoners. — Prison Doles - Page 258 CHAP. IX. HUNTING AND HAWKING. Romance of old Hunting. — Story of a Stag at Bay. — Elizabeth and her Cross-Bow. — Jargon of the Hawking Field. — Brawls. — Passionate Love ofthe Chase. — Seven Sorts of Falcons. — Names, &c. — The Barbary and Peregrine Falcons. — Sacre and Laner. — Merlin and Hobby. — Hawks. — Duties of a Falconer. — Signs of good and bad Hawks. — Flight of the Heron. — Description of the Mew. — Training of the Hawk. — Flight to the Field. — To make a Hawk bold. — Surgery. — Characters of Birds. — Sewing up the Eyes. — How to recover a cowed Bird. — Falcon Training. — The Sparrow Hawk. — Flying at the Partridge. — Falconer's Duties. — Bad Habits, and how to cure them. — Diseases of Hawks. — Hunting. — A Huntsman's Duties. — How to track a Hart. — Habits of the Deer. — Subtleties of the Deer. — Mode of Hunting. — Breaking up the dead Deer. — Rewarding the Dogs. — French and English Manner. — Royal Pic Nics. — Age of a Deer known by his Horns. — Hunters' Superstitions. — Hare Hunting. — Subtleties of the Hare - - INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.

The England to which we wish to introduce our readers is Shakspere's England, the England of the sixteenth century. We go back to days of gilt rapiers and roses on the shoe, of ruff and fardingale, of peaked starched beards and slashed hose, to days when forks were a novelty, and tobacco-smoking the last caprice of fashion. We want, in fact, to lead our readers a long, rambling, gossiping walk through Ludgate, up Cheap, and into Paul's, then away to the Bear Garden in Southwark, and the Globe, where As you like it is acting ; anon past the old cross at Charing to the presence-chamber at Greenwich or Richmond, and back to make a night of it at the Devil Tavern, where the players and poets meet, just under the chimes of St. Dunstan. We warrant you safe from all stabbing gamesters and quarrelsome serving men, as we hurry from the tilt-yard to the pageant, — VOL. I. E from the farmer's dinner to the gipsy's pic-nic.

We beg you to forget black coats or silk hats, and people the old streets with crowds of gallants in motley wavering silks, all fluttering with iris colours — matching so well the gay bonnet-feathers and the ribbons or jewels in the ear : mix in the mob a sprinkling of leather-jerkined 'prentices, sober clad, flat-capped citizens, players in faded satin, sturdy water-carriers, and noisy shopkeepers calling " What do you lack ? " all day under their penthouses and at their doors, — and you see the London of the Armada year 1588. Not that this sixteenth century world is a dead and buried one like Chaucer's world, with the men who donned hoods, and the itinerant showmen with their spurious relics ; or Pope's world, with the men who wore ruffles, carried clouded canes, and sported cocked hats and lace cravats.

No : some of our dearest friends, and near-heart relations, live in Shakspere's London ; and if you follow us through old streets, we can find them all out without any Directory. Here is the Dagger Tavern in Cheapside, — a hostelrie well known by the 'prentices for its excellent pies. Look in at the window : there are Sir John Falstaff and Sir Toby Belch discussing a pot of sack ; Dame Quickly is the hostess, and Maria the barmaid. As we pass on up Cheap LONDON IN 1588. 3 we see a fat pursy old lady, with a feather fan, and a lub berly page dragging after her to hold up her train of satin. That is the Capulets' nurse, and that page was christened Peter; but we regret to see a band of mad-brained gallants, Romeo, Benedict, Claudio, Lorenzo, and some others, exchanging jokes with each other at the stately waddle of the faithful but corpulent nurse, or rather now house keeper.

Shylock, we hear, is turned scrivener, and lives near St. Paul's. Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and his warm-hearted but simple friend Master Slender, have just passed arm in arm with Dogberry and the watch, having been rather overtaken last night with malmsey at the Three Cranes in the Vintry. If you looked up at the gateway as you passed Ludgate, and observed the prisoners begging alms, you might have remembered one Bardolph, whose nose still shines like a meteor in spite of gaol fare and short commons. Wily Autolychus is shouting ballads at the door of the play house in Blackfriars ; his companion, who also educates dancing dogs and cuts safe purses, is Master Parolles, now rather out at elbows. That brawny servingman in livery of blue and orange, with a silver badge on his arm, is little Moth, grown up to man's stature, and about to be married to Beatrice's waiting woman, who has jilted Mal volio and refused Balthasar.

Sir Topas preaches sour B Puritan discourses at St. Antholins, and Mar-Text is his curate. But we must beg you to follow us, and view old scenes as well as old friends. You must come birding with Master Ford, break a blade with Gratiano, concoct medicaments with Dr. Caius and Romeo's Italian 'pothecary, go to the Bear Garden with Slender, lose at shovelboard with Poins, and see Sir Andrew cozened by Shoetie the great traveller. To confound truth and fable, you may witness Burbage throned as Richard, at the Borough Theatre, look at Babbington's head on the spikes of London Bridge, mark the old Mother Pratt, whose gown Falstaff borrowed, tried for witchcraft ; and in fact, for a few hours, forget the nineteenth, and sympathise with the sixteenth century. In these scenes the reader must imagine himself seated side by side with Shaksperean characters ; at the tilt-yard with Mercutio, at the ale-house with Pistol, at the Ex change with Antonio, at the fencing school with Claudio, at the ordinary with Lorenzo.

As a complete antiquarian social history, we do not put this book forward, but confess it to be a series of elaborated groups, carefully studied from old plays and forgotten pamphlets, and illustrated by nearly all exist- OLD HISTORIANS NEGLECT DETAIL. 5 ing contemporary literature. Charters, and MSS. remain untouched for another and more elaborate volume. Inadequate as these pages may be,no one acquainted with our historians can be ignorant that such a book is wanted. Hume and Smollett do not stop to paint the manners of the men whose actions they trace with philosophic brevity. History is full of abstract persons, shadowy as the figures of an allegory. We cannot learn from their dignified pictures how the men who fought the Armada dressed, or how they amused themselves. This detail has hitherto had to be principally won from rare books or scarce plays, but we trust we may have partly supplied the want.

We lead the reader to the Elizabethan manor-house and palace, to the dining-hall and the ball-room. We guide him through old London, point out to him the oddities in the crowd, and look in at the shops; show him as tenderly as if he were a country cousin, the bear-garden and the theatre, introduce him to the gallants at the ordinary, and jostle him among the jugglers and showmen of the noisy city fairs. We do not forget to give him a peep into the smoky alchemist's laboratory, or the astrologer's study, we show him the murky London prisons, and recite to him all the amusing knaveries of their inmates. He will learn something, too, of every class of society, from the ruler on the throne to the captive in Newgate, from the B farmer to the page, from the merchant to the beggar. In every line he will be reminded of Shakspere, and see how saturated that divine genius was with the thoughts and feelings of his own age ; though he could invoke at a word the dreams and visions of all conceivable past and futures ; how on a broad basis of experience and reality Shak spere based even his most ethereal idealities. — A lion hearted woman, and English-souled, sat on the throne, Burleigh was her counsellor, Raleigh her soldier, Frobisher her voyager, Drake her captain, Shakspere her dramatist, Sidney her courtier, Gresham her merchant.

The times are great times, and patriotism is roused. Elizabeth is the acknowledged defender of Protestantism all over the world, and she declares the pope, the devil, and the Spaniard are her sworn enemies. Dying men on the stake turn their glazing eyes towards England. Pale men withering in the dark dungeons of the Inqui sition, pray for England. The Dutch, battling beside the sea dykes, or on his low flat sandy downs, uses the name of England as the war-cry that scares the Spaniard. The Huguenot, bending to the axe, whispers " England." The times are great times, for the Reformation is still at work, and religion is a fervid vital impulse in all thoughtful hearts. There is much danger, for the troops of Alva are at the door, and while there is a Catholic queen PROGRESS OF THE DRAMA. 7 in Scotland, Mary de Medici plots in France.

The riches of America have given Spain a power alarming to Protestantism. There are disaffected men in every street, but patriotism and loyalty are now warm passions, not merely cold abstractions. The discovery of printing is still affecting mankind, and the classical spirit is infusing fresh life into literature. Chivalry and feudalism are sinking below the horizon, and their setting only sheds a light on the country they once illumined ; classes, though not hostile to each other, are distinct and isolated. There is happiness in the country, and wealth in the city. The people have reached a degree of civilisation, when the drama is their best education, and the stage is now the resort of all literary men, amongst whom the son of a decayed Staffordshire gentleman is not the least celebrated.

Dress is splendid, manners stately, and costumes picturesque. A gallant's amusements are not now, fox-hunting, rat-killing, billiards, and the opera, but running at the ring and the glove, — hawking, the ordinary, and the play. There is no West End of London, but more sociality. The gentleman who is in the morning walking with the citizens in Finsbury or Moorfields, is at night to be seen stepping a Canary at Whitehall. Paul's, and not Rotten Row, is the great daily promenade. The Strand the nobleman's b quarter. Venice is the continental place of resort, and not Paris. Italian the fashionable language, and not French. America is still almost an unknown country, Africa untraversed, and Ireland a sort of Algiers, where we wage perpetual war with the cruel and revengeful tribes of a people little better than Bedouins or bar barians.

Small as England is, with no standing army, and but a few vessels, she is respected or feared by all the world. Her colonial empire is founding firmly and surely. We visit Newfoundland, trade with Russia, build forts in India, ravage South America, intimidate France, overthrow Spain, and influence Germany. With a few national weaknesses, Elizabeth proved the greatest queen that ever lived. Brave as Semiramis, undaunted as Catherine, she had neither the cruelty of the Babylonian, nor the evil passions of the Russian. We hope we do not claim too much for this book in trying to make it a sort of key to Shakspere, every pao-e being indeed a comment on the manners and the people whom he paints. The records of his age are, we know, still existing, but torn in as many pieces as the body of Osiris was, and, hidden in dark and dusty tracts and plays, known to few but the dustmen and scavengers of litera ture, men who grope in the sewers of the past, in hope of INDIVIDUALITY OF SHAKSPERE'S CHARACTERS. 9 finding amongst the rubbish and the filth some stray rinc or long-forgotten jewel.

In every play of Shakspere there are a thousand allu sions to manners unobserved by readers ignorant of the social history of his age. These manners are partially ex plained in millions of contradictory notes and prefaces, but nowhere in any collective or interesting shape. The noisy, punning, quarrelsome gallants he sketches were not ab stractions, but portraits from his daily life ; so were the mischievous pages, the witty servingwomen, the merry wives, and the fervent lovers. His Macbeth and Lear, &c, are indeed of no age ; but such characters as Cassio and Gratiano, Sir Toby and Malvolio, can only be un derstood by comparing them with the originals whom the poet meant to ridicule or satirise. The pedant, the bully, the amoroso, the malcontent, the servingman, and the gaoler, of the sixteenth century, are all embalmed, like so many dried flowers, between his immortal and perennial pages. ANCIENT AND MODERN LONDON. 11

CHAPTER I. THE STREETS OF OLD LONDON.

" The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples." Tempest, Act iv. Sc. 1. " Up Fish Street, down St. Magnus Corner." Henry VI. (Part II.), Act iv. Sc. 8. Ancient and Modern London. — The black Thames and the white Thames. — Suburbs. — Fashion in Drury Lane. — Noblemen. — The Strand. — Gates and Walls. — Village of St. Giles. —Fleet River. — Moorfields. — Whitehall. — Houses on London Bridge. — Gresham's Exchange. — City Gardens. — Fountains. ■ — City Taverns. — Bedlam. — Thieves' Quarters. — Prisons. — Localities of Trade. — Wells and Springs. — Celebrated Tradesmen of the Day. — Processions. — Marriages. — Funerals. — Thieves going to Tyburn. — Royal Visits. — Ambassadors. — Pageants. — 'Prentice Riots. — The old Street Cries. — A Citizen's Amusements. — Shops and Penthouses. — ■ Sketch of the Crowds. — Barber and Apothecary. — Characters of the Day. — Street Rows. — Extinct Trades. — Foreign Shops. — Manners of the 'Prentices. — Apothecary's Shop. — System of Medicine. — Scenes in a Crowd. — Gaoler, Lawyer, and Informer. — The Pawnbroker. — The Barber- Surgeons. — The Tailor's Shop. — Bookseller's Shop. — The Tinker. — Foreign Workmen. — The Goldsmith — Vintner ■ — Their Frauds. — Colliers. — The Thames Watermen. — The Saddler and Butcher. — Prices. — The Tanner and Shoemaker. — The Chirurgeon. — Puritans' Attacks on the Tricks of Trade. — Have we improved ?

It is difficult to realise Old London, with its walls and gates ; its stainless, shining, and spotless river ; its 40,000 watermen ; its narrow streets, full of plumed and ponderous coaches ; its tide, alive with innumerable boats ; the Thames river, not yet a concrete of coal-dust and mud, but a crystal flood, sheltered with palaces, shaded with trees, and perfumed with flowers. Imagine the Tower, not deserted and forgotten, but busy and frequented, and the citadel of the city; the Borough side a broad tract of green fields and thatched cottages. Whitehall is new and glittering, but one bridge only spans the river, with its lines of houses, its chapel, and its ghastly rows of shrivelled heads. Oxford Street is a muddy country road leading to Tyburn. Hyde Park is bare and open, Islington a village, and Marylebone a suburb.

Noblemen are dwelling in Drury Lane and Al dersgate, yes even in the oldest portions of the city, and the West End is unthought of. No distinctive grades of social position are yet known, and the tradesman lives at the very doors of the richest nobles in England. Every where there are fields and gardens in the neighbourhood of the most crowded streets. St. Paul's is the gentleman's fashionable promenade, and Moorfields the favourite walk of the citizens. The gabled-ended shops are hung thick with signs ; foreign armour and tapestries are in the open stalls, and a perpetual cry of " What do you lack ? " resounds at every door and under ev^ry penthouse. SUBURBS OF LONDON. 13 We can scarcely imagine London a walled city, having gates like Thebes, and able to stand a siege like Troy. There was a deep, fond feeling of home when Ludgate, Bishopsgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Aldgate, &c, were shut at a certain hour, when Bow-bell rang, and citi zens felt they were barred in for the night, guarded and watched over by men of their own appointing.

London is too large now to love as a mother, and too dirty to honour as a father. At Ludgate was a gaol, where the prisoners clamoured for alms at the barred grate; and it was here that Sir Thomas Wyatt had been repulsed. The city wall that joined this gate to its other fellow gates ran from the Tower through the Minories to Aldgate, Houndsditch, and Bi shopsgate, through Cripplegate to Aldersgate, and so past Christ Hospital by Newgate and Ludgate to the Thames. Pimlico was a country place where citizens used to repair to eat " pudding pies " on a Sunday, as they did to Islington or Hogsden to take tobacco and drink new milk, as Islington was famous for its dairy, where Sir Walter Raleigh is said to have lived in an old house still standing ; so Holloway was famous for its cheese cakes ; and it is these peculiarities that, after all, confer immortality upon a place.

Chelsea was the mere village of Chelsea, known from Sir Thomas More's house, where Henry had walked with his arm round that great statesman's doomed neck ; as Holborn was then a country road leading to the pleasant village of St. Giles, and trending on to the way that led to Oxford, and to fatal Tyburn, so called from its burn or brook, then well known to patient city anglers. The triple tree or gallows stood at the corner of the present Edgware Road. The same Oxford Street led also, if you turned up one side of the Hampstead Road, to the Tottenham Court, which stood there alone far in the country, and Primrose Hill was an untrodden hillock, sur rounded by wide paths and ditches, between this Court and Hampstead. A cheerful little stream, known by the pleasant name of Fleet, rose near Hampstead Hill, and joined by the Old Bourne and recruited by sparkling Clerken Well, emptied itself in the Thames.

Though even then merely a sewer, it was open, and had four bridges of its own, while the Thames had but one ; and these were known as Holborn Bridge, Fleet-lane Bridge, Fleet Bridge, and Bridewell Bridge. Spitalfields was a grassy open space, with artillery grounds and a pulpit and cross *, where fairs were held and sermons were preached. There were also Tothill Fields, and Finsbury Fields, and Moorfields, just outside the city * Cunningham's Guide Book to London. WHITEHALL. 15 walls, laid out in walks, and planted, as far as Hoxton. Round these squares there were windmills and everything equally rural. As for Piccadilly, it was everywhere known as a road to Reading, and by many herbalists, as harbouring the small wild foxglove in its dry ditches. Outside Temple Bar, before the wooden gatehouse was built, lay the Strand, the road leading from the City to the houses of Court.

This river bank was the chosen re sidence of the nobility, whose gardens stretched to the edge of the undefiled river. The sky was then pure and bright, for our ancestors burnt wood fires, and the water was gay with thousands of boats. Each house had its terrace, its water stairs, and garden. The street houses were so scattered that the river could be seen between, and there were three water courses there traversed by bridges, besides two churches and a Maypole. Here stood York House, where Bacon was born, and Durham Place, where Raleigh lived, with his study in a turret overlooking the river ; there also was Arundel House and Essex House, where great men pined and plotted. At Whitehall stood Wolsey's Palace, enlarged by Henry VIIL, and Elizabeth's favourite residence when not at Nonsuch in Surrey, Windsor, Greenwich, or Rich mond.

The tilt-yard stood where the Horse Guards now stands. St. James's Palace, also built by Henry VIIL, where the Queen's melancholy-bigot sister had died, was seldom inhabited by the Court ; but the park was even then existing. As for the old palace of Richard III. (Baynard's Castle), that had been let to the Earl of Pem broke, and the same King's dwelling of Crosby Hall had fallen into the hands of an alderman.* But the most characteristic erection in Old London was its pride, the bridge. It had a gatehouse and drawbridge at each end, and in the middle a chapel dedicated to that restless A'Beckett, in the crypt of which lay the body of the founder, Peter of Colechurch, who died in 1205. The bridge was lined with stately houses, with spaces here and there for travellers to rest and look at the fairflowing river over the parapet, for suicides were not yet fashionable; the houses had gable-ends, platform roofs, small gardens, and arbours.