Chapter IV: Part 4

The only one of the famous old mansions recently remaining was Shaftesbury or Thanet House. It was built by Inigo Jones for the Tuftons, Earls of Thanet, and was purchased by Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury, the Achitophel of Dryden. Pennant says: "It was hired or purchased by the incendiary statesman, Lord Shaftesbury, for the purpose of living in the City to inflame the minds of the citizens, among whom he used to boast he could raise 10,000 brisk boys by the holding up of his finger. He attempted to get into the magistracy, but being disappointed in his views and terrified at the apprehension of the detection of a conspiracy he had entered into against his prince, he fled, in 1683, into Holland, where he soon died of the gout, heightened by rage and frustrated ambition."

The house was afterwards let for manufacturing purposes; in 1750 it became a Lying-in-Hospital, which was removed to the City Road, when it was opened as a Dispensary, with a Dissenting Chapel, called Shaftesbury Chapel, on the first floor, until the migration of the congregation to a new chapel opposite Westmoreland Buildings, called Aldersgate Chapel.

Petre, Dorchester, or London House stood on the west side of the street nearly opposite Shaftesbury House. It is supposed to have been built by Sir William Petre, who became rich by monastic plunder at the dissolution of monasteries, and died in 1572. It was occupied by his descendants until 1639, when it came into possession of Henry Pierrepoint, Marquis of Dorchester. During the Commonwealth it was made use of as a state prison, and after the Great Fire of 1666 had destroyed the palace of the Bishop of London, in St. Paul's Churchyard, became the episcopal residence of the see, many alterations being made, and the chapel built by various bishops, and was held by them until 1725. In 1748 it was occupied by Jacob Ilive, "the crazy printer and fanatical writer," and twenty years after by Seddon, the eminent cabinetmaker, ancestors of the Seddons of Gray's Inn Road, who had the misfortune to have it burnt, with the whole of his uninsured stock, on two occasions. Afterwards, also, Miss Seddon was burnt to death in the house, by her clothes catching fire.

The two mighty and illustrious northern families of Percy and Nevil had both of them a town mansion in Aldersgate Street on the western side—Northumberland House, on the site of Bull and Mouth Street; and Westmoreland House, on the site of Westmoreland Court, extending to Bartholomew Close. On the death of Henry, first Earl of Northumberland, at the Battle of Bramham Moor, 1408, and his subsequent attainder, King Henry IV. gave Northumberland House to Queen Joan for a wardrobe. Afterwards it became a printing office, then a tavern, and finally was divided into shops and tenements. Lauderdale House stood on the east side, a little north of Shaftesbury House. It was the residence of the Earl of Lauderdale, a member of the "Cabal" ministry of Charles II. Upon the site was built Bote and Walsh's distillery. Close by Shaftesbury House stood Bacon House, the residence of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper to Queen Elizabeth, and father of Lord Chancellor Bacon, one of the greatest of our philosophers. Ralph Montagu, third Baron and first Duke of Montagu, "as arrant a knave as any in his time," as Swift observed when he was raised to a dukedom, lived in Aldersgate Street until he built Montagu House, Bloomsbury (the British Museum), when he removed thither. Charles Mordaunt, third Earl of Peterborough, one of the foremost men of the court of Queen Anne, was also a resident. On the west side of the street there is a picturesque old house (now a newsagent's shop) with an inscription stating that "This was Shakespeare's House," which may possibly be true, but there does not appear to be any documentary evidence in proof thereof. Mary, Countess of Pembroke, sister of Sir P. Sydney, the subject of Ben Jonson's famous epitaph, which was not inscribed on her tomb, died at her house in the street in 1621.

Many other distinguished personages have been born, lived, or died in Aldersgate Street, amongst whom may be noticed Milton, who in 1641 was living in a house at the bottom of Lamb (now Maidenhead) Court; Brian Walton, Bishop of Chester, the learned editor of the first English Polyglot Bible; Thos. Flatman, the poet, who was born in the street in 1657; the brothers Rawlinson, who resided in London House—Thomas, the "Tom Folio" of the _Tatler_, No. 158, and Richard, LL.D., F.R.S., and F.S.A., both antiquaries and great collectors of books. The Right Hon. Thos. Harley, a memorable member of the Corporation, and M.P. for the City, also resided here.

The Company of Cooks had their hall on the western side of Aldersgate Street, adjoining Little Britain. The company was incorporated by Letters Patent in 1480, by Edward IV., under the style and title of "The Masters and Governors and Commonalty of the Mystery of Cooks in London," and their charter was confirmed by Elizabeth and James I. with "a master, four wardens, and 25 assistants." The hall escaped the fire of 1666, but was destroyed by fire in 1771, and was not rebuilt.

There have been and still are many taverns and hostelries of considerable note in Aldersgate Street and St. Martin's-le-Grand. The most interesting is the "Mourning Bush," a very ancient tavern with a carved ivy bush for its sign—a timber-gabled house—with portions of the old wall of London for its foundations. It stood on the east side of the street, and had a back entrance in St. Anne's Lane. The landlord, during the time of the Civil War, was a devoted royalist, and on the execution of King Charles had the courage to paint his ivy bush black, and call it the "Mourning Bush." In 1749, the sign was changed to "The Fountain," and is referred to by Tom Brown as one of the "four or five topping taverns of the City," whose owners might look for an alderman's gown. In 1830, it was repaired and refitted, and instead of restoring the old historically interesting name, it has since been christened "The Lord Raglan." "The Bull and Mouth" (a corruption of Boulogne Mouth, or Harbour) a very ancient hostelry, originally standing in Bull and Mouth and Angel streets, with a galleried and gabled court-yard, now taken down. It was rebuilt in 1830, and to meet the more fastidious taste of the time its somewhat vulgar name was changed to the more euphonious "Queen's Hotel." On a stone tablet was the following inscription:—

"Milo the Cretonian
An ox slew with his fist,
And ate it up at one meal,
Ye gods, what a glorious twist!"

The new branch of the Post Office is being built on the site. Two doors from Barbican stood the "Bell," an inn worthy of being remembered as having been the resort of John Taylor, the Water Poet. The Albion is celebrated for its public dinners, and for the trade sales of London publishers. The Castle and Falcon is also a famous and very old inn, standing close by, and probably on a portion of the site of the gate.

Aldersgate Street has been the scene of some incendiary fires for the sake of plunder. Pepys, in his _Diary_, July, 1687, refers to a case in which two boys, one "a son of Lady Montagu's, I know not what Lady Montagu—got into the company of some rogues, who persuaded them to rob their fathers' houses of plate and other valuables, of which they appropriated the greater portion, and afterwards to set fire to a house in the street, that they might abscond with the goods that were thrown into the streets." Again in May, 1790, some scoundrels fired a house at the corner of Long Lane, which eventuated in the destruction of all the houses to Catherine (? Carthusian Street), involving the loss of property amounting to £40,000, that they might plunder them in the confusion. One John Flindall was apprehended, tried, and sentenced to transportation for robbery during the fire, when he offered to turn king's evidence, was accepted, and he revealed the diabolical plot, implicating especially two accomplices, Lowe and Jobbins, the ringleaders, who were hanged in front of the ruins. The Corporation took advantage of the clearance to widen Aldersgate in this part of the street, which had previously been very narrow, at a cost of £4,035.

The 7th of May, in the year 1603, was a day long remembered by the worthy citizens of Aldersgate Street, as that on which King James VI. of Scotland, entered the City through their gate to assume the title of James the First of England. The street was adorned with triumphal arches; arras and costly hangings decorated the fronts of the houses, and numberless banners and pennons floated in the breeze from the windows and points of the gables; the windows were filled with the beauty of the City—matrons and maidens; while the 'prentices and other venturous spirits perched themselves on the roofs, and the roadway below was densely crowded by citizens, who ever and anon made the welkin ring by their shouts of welcome. Sheriff Swinnerton, with ten followers in rich liveries, met the King at Waltham, and congratulated him on his safe arrival. At Stamford Hill he was met by the Lord Mayor Lee and the aldermen, all in scarlet robes, and 500 of the most eminent of the citizens, on horseback, all sumptuously apparelled in velvet, with gold chains round their necks. The procession passed slowly along, pausing at intervals to look upon some ingeniously-contrived pageant, and listen to the congratulations of the characters represented, and along Aldersgate Street to the Charter House, where the king was magnificently entertained by Lord Howard four days. In the evening the street was brilliantly illuminated by means of bonfires, cresset-bearers marching up and down, and lights from the windows.

In the last and the preceding centuries Little Britain was the great centre of the publishing and book-selling trades, and in Aldersgate Street, of which it is a tributary, there have lived several eminent members thereof. John Day, the famous printer, _temp._ Edward VI. and Elizabeth, occupied rooms over the gate. He printed a folio edition of the Bible, 1549, dedicated to King Edward VI.; published also the works of Ascham, Tindal, etc., and it was at his suggestion that Foxe wrote his _Book of Martyrs_, respecting which it was said—

"He set a fox to write how martyrs runne,
By death to lyfe."

Jacob Ilive, an eccentric printer, set up his press in London House, where he printed several of his own fantastic writings, such as "The speech of Mr. J. I., to his brothers, the Master Printers, on the Utility of Printing, 1730; etc., etc." Robert Chiswell, who died in 1711, of whom Dunton, in his _Life and Errors_, says, "The most eminent in his profession in the three kingdoms, I take to be Mr. Robert Chiswell, who well deserves the title of Metropolitan Bookseller of England, if not of all the world." John Hereford, whose last publication was the Newe Testament, 1548; Nicholas Borman; Anthony Scholcker, _vix_ 1548, afterwards of Ipswich; William Tilly, who published the new Testament in 4to. in 1549; Henry Denham, at the sign of the Bear and Ragged Staff, Thomas Easte, at the sign of the Black Horse, and Thos. Whitchurch, at the sign of the Well and Two Buckets, St Martin's-le-Grand.

Old Broad Street.

The ward to which this street gives its name is unquestionably the richest in the City of London, containing within its limits, extending from Cornhill Ward on the south to Bishopsgate Ward on the north, and from Bishopsgate Ward on the east to Coleman Street Ward on the west, some of the most wealthy and important commercial establishments of the metropolis. Within its boundaries are the Bank of England, and a multitude of other high-class banks, the Royal Exchange, the Stock Exchange, several Insurance offices, Consulates, the South Sea House, the Inland Revenue Office, Drapers' Hall, Merchant Taylors' Hall, Carpenters' Hall, and an infinite number of merchants' offices, where mercantile transactions of incalculable magnitude take place daily. It comprehends within its area several of the most important commercial and financial streets of the City—Threadneedle Street, Lothbury, Throgmorton Street, Great Winchester Street, Princes Street, Moorgate Street, Austin Friars, with other smaller streets, courts, and alleys, all full of life, bustle, and active commercial life. It comprehends six parishes—those of Allhallows-on-the-Wall, St. Martin Outwich, St. Bene't Fink, St. Bartholemew-by-the-Exchange, St. Peter-le-Poor, and St. Christopher, Threadneedle Street. Besides these are the Dutch Church, of the Austin Friars, and the Walloon or French Protestant Church in Threadneedle Street.

Old Broad Street is a wide spacious thoroughfare extending from the end of Throgmorton Street to London Wall and Wormwood Street, whence it is continued northward to Liverpool Street by New Broad Street; at the south end, by Throgmorton Street, it diverges at a slight angle to the end of Threadneedle Street, this portion having formerly been called Little Broad Street.

In the time of Charles I. it was one of the most fashionable streets in London, the place of residence of several aristocratic families, including, amongst others, those of the Earls of Shrewsbury, the Careys, Barons Hunsdon, and Earls of Dover, and the Westons, Barons Weston, and Earls of Portland, extinct 1688. The most important house, however, was Winchester House, which, with its gardens, occupied the site of Great and Little Winchester streets. The mansion was built by Sir William Paulet, first Marquis of Winchester, one of the foremost men of his age, and a remarkable man in many respects. He was born in the year 1475, and lived to the age of 97, holding various offices of state during two-thirds of that period, and at his death left upwards of a hundred descendants. In 1539 he was created, by patent, Baron St. John of Basing, to which title, by writ of summons, 1299, he was eldest co-heir. In 1549 he was created Earl of Wiltshire, and in 1551 Marquis of Winchester. He was Comptroller of the Household to Henry VIII., an executor of his will, and guardian of the young king, Edward VI., and afterwards became Lord Treasurer, and was made Knight of the Garter. He died in 1572, having witnessed all the changes of religion, and the turmoils and troubles attendant thereupon. On being asked how he managed to maintain his position, and an unbroken flow of prosperity, amid all the religious and political fluctuations of his time, he replied that "he was made of the pliable willow, not of the stubborn oak." He was twice married, first to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Capel, Lord Mayor of London, who was mother of his heir, the second marquis. At the dissolution of the Augustine Friary, the house and grounds were granted by Henry VIII. to Lord St. John, who pulled down a portion of the friary, built a mansion which he made his town residence, and laid out the grounds afresh which extended to the City wall, with a footway across, leading to Moorgate. This footpath had gates at each end, which were kept locked during the night, and no one allowed to pass along it. The Marquis was also the builder of Basing House, Wiltshire, memorable for the siege it sustained in the subsequent civil war.

In modern times Sir Astley Cooper, the celebrated surgeon, resided in Broad Street, in a house at the corner of the paved court leading to St. Botolph's Church, Bishopsgate Street, where he held a morning _levée_ of City patients. His fees, the first year he commenced, amounted to five guineas, and it was not until the 5th that they reached £100 and the 9th, £1,000. After that they rose rapidly to £1,500, and one year he received the sum of £21,000. Afterwards he removed to the West-End, but he found a sensible diminution of his receipts from those derived from the City millionaires. The abbot of St. Alban's also had his town house opposite St. Augustine's Gate. Even in the time of the Romans, this part of the City would appear to have been inhabited by the aristocratical section of the community, as in 1854 a magnificent tesselated floor, 28-feet square, was discovered, such as must have belonged to a large and high-class house. Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, in 1243, founded on a plot of land extending westward from Broad Street, a priory for begging Friars of the order of St. Augustine, which flourished until the dissolution, when the house and grounds were granted to Lord St. John and the church, appropriated by King Edward VI., in 1551, to "John Alasco, and a congregation of Germans and other strangers fled hither for the sake of religion," the church to be called "the temple of the Lord Jesus," and in the hands of the Germans, or rather Dutch it still remains.

There is but one church in the street—St. Peter's, originally St. Peter the Apostle, but now St. Peter-the-Poor, a mean edifice, with an ungainly tower, and might well be designated "the poor" from its poverty of architectural merit. Maitland says that it "received the appellation from the mean condition (as is supposed) of the parish in ancient times. If so that epithet may at present be justly changed to that of rich, because of the great number of merchants and other persons of distinction inhabiting there." The probability seems to be that it derived that name from its proximity to the house of Begging Friars, who made a merit of their poverty, and this came to be called St. Peter by the Poor Friars, to distinguish it from St. Peter's, Cornhill, and others of the name. We have no knowledge of when or by whom it was built, but it is a very ancient foundation, as there is documentary evidence showing it to have been in existence in 1181. Among the rectors of St. Peter's have been some notable men. Richard Holdsworth, D.D., educated at St. John's, Cambridge, where he won a name for proficiency in arts and theology, became master of Emanuel College, and vice-chancellor of the university, who was preferred to the rectory in 1636. He was a zealous loyalist, and ejected from his living in 1642, his house plundered, and he imprisoned in the Tower. In 1645, he was nominated to the deanery of Worcester and elected Bishop of Bristol, but declined the dignity. He was permitted to attend King Charles at Hampton Court and Carisbrook Castle, but he suffered much by deprivation, sequestration, and several imprisonments. He died in 1649, and was buried in the church of St. Peter. Benjamin Hoadley, D.D., afterwards successively Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester, who held the living from 1704 to 1720. He was eminent as a controversialist, and held views which would now be termed Rationalistic, approaching closely to Unitarianism, which were developed especially in his _Plain Account of the Sacrament_, and his _Discourses on the Terms of Acceptance_. When Bishop of Bangor, he published a sermon on "The True Nature of the Kingdom that Christ came upon Earth to Establish," from the text, "My kingdom is not of this world," which gave rise to the celebrated and long-protracted "Bangorian Controversy." He published a multitude of works, chiefly of a controversial character, and died in 1761.

John Scott, D.D., 1677-91, afterwards rector of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and canon of Windsor, a learned divine, author of _Cases of Conscience_, 1683; _Texts Cited by the Papists Examined_, 1688; _The Christian Life_, 1683; ninth edition, 1702; and other works, which passed through successive editions, and some translated into foreign languages. His entire works were published in two vols., fol., in 1718, and in six vols., 8vo., in 1826.

In the fifteenth century Venice held the secret and the monopoly of glass making. The works were situated on the island of Murano, and many attempts were made by other nations to learn the secret, but the Venetians asserted and spread abroad the report that it was impossible to make glass elsewhere equal to that of Murano, even with the same materials, the same workmen, and the same method of working, as there was something in the air of the island which imparted a lucidity and lustre, rendering the glass of the island superior to anything that could be produced in any other part of the world.

About the middle of the sixteenth century the manufacture was introduced into England, and works established in the Savoy and Crutched Friars. Early in the following century a company of noblemen and courtiers, with Sir Robert Mansell at their head, formed an association for the manufacture of glass, and built works for that purpose in Broad Street, near Austin Friars. At that time it was not deemed derogatory to the dignity of a nobleman to engage in the glass trade. In Venice the manufacture was held in such high esteem that those engaged in the profession ranked as gentlemen, and in France a decree was issued that glass-working should not lessen the dignity of a noble.

In 1615 the company employed as their manager or steward James Howell, afterwards Historiographer Royal to Charles II., whom they sent abroad to obtain information for the improvement of their processes, and to employ skilful workmen. He obtained from the Lords of Council a warrant to travel for three years, on condition that he did not visit Rome or St. Omer, and he started off in 1619, returning in 1621.

He tempted the best workmen, by a promise of a high rate of wages, especially Signor Antonio Miotti, from Lealand, who had been a master manufacturer, and was reckoned the ablest workman in Christendom, and from Venice "two of the best gentlemen workmen that ever blew crystal."

Howell was a remarkable man, and led a somewhat varied life of vicissitude. After his continental tour he threw up his situation, not being able to bear the heat of the glass works, was elected a fellow of his college, and in 1626 became secretary to the council of the North, at York, and the next year was elected to represent Richmond, Yorkshire, in Parliament. In 1632 he went to Denmark as secretary to a special embassy, and on his return went to Ireland to seek employment under Wentworth, but failed in consequence of the recall and execution of that nobleman. In 1640 he obtained a clerkship in the council at Whitehall, but lost it on the breaking out of the Civil War, and in 1643 was committed to the Fleet for his loyal predilections, where he remained until the death of the king. On his release he found himself not only penniless, but in debt. He contrived, however, to maintain himself during the Protectorate by writing for the press, and at the restoration was appointed Historiographer Royal, which office he held until his death in 1666.

When Monk came to London to effect the restoration of monarchy, he halted with his army in Finsbury Fields, had a conference with the Lord Mayor and aldermen, who coincided with him in his views, which were professedly the maintenance of a free Parliament. He quartered his men in the Broad Street Glass House, and passed himself into the City, amid the acclamations of the people, to the Bull's Head, Cheapside, where he took up his quarters. The glass works, despite the monopoly, was not a success, the manufacture was discontinued, and the house, or a portion of it, taken by the Pinmakers' Company.

The Pinmakers, or Pinners as they were usually called, were neither a numerous or a rich company. Indeed, Stow says that they met in Plasterers' Hall originally, and in his time the house had gone to decay, as "they were not worth a pin." The company was formed in the reign of James I., and was incorporated 2nd Charles I. (1636). The arms presented a crowned half figure of Queen Elizabeth, with the motto, "Virginitas et unitas nostra fraternitas." Towards the end of the 17th century they held their quarterly courts of assistants in Cutler's Hall, Cloak Lane, Dowgate. In the Guildhall Library is preserved the minute-book of the quarterly meetings from 1698 to 1723, some portions of which are engrossed. It commences with a list of members in 1698; then gives the minutes of the meetings in succession. The chief business appears to have been fining the members of the court 1s. for being late, binding and unloosing apprentices, and voting donations to the widows of members. The company has now entirely disappeared.

St. Augustine's passed through some strange mutations before it finally disappeared. Originally the home of a fraternity of begging friars, it became the stables and outhouses of the mansion of a nobleman. Then it was converted into a glass factory; a soldiers' barracks for a short time; after which it was appropriated by a City company, and finally became a great centre of Protestant Dissent, from whose pulpit were enunciated principles of theology at which, in the olden time, friars would have stood aghast. In the reign of Charles II., Anthony Palmer, who had been ejected from Bourton-on-the-Water, and who suffered much under the Act of Uniformity, an able and learned man, author of _The Tempestuous Soul calmed by Jesus Christ_, and other esteemed works, collected a congregation here, took a lease of the building, and fitted it up with two tiers of galleries, and died in 1678. He was followed by a long succession of ministers who preached Calvinistic doctrines, amongst the more notable of whom were George Townes, M.A., who had been apprehended in the pulpit at Bristol on a charge of having being implicated in the "Presbyterian Plot," was removed by _habeas corpus_ to King's Bench Prison, and eventually acquitted. He suffered much persecution, and died of the stone, aggravated by his imprisonment, in 1685. Richard Wavel, famous for his pulpit oratory, who died in 1707. Joseph Hunt, D.D., a learned divine, who occupied the pulpit 37 years. He is highly panegyrised by Dr. Lardner for his erudition, strength of mind, and wonderful memory. Joseph Foster, D.D., born 1697, pastor of Pinners' Hall Church 1774-1753, author of _The Usefulness, Truth, and Excellency of the Christian Revelation_, written in reply to _Christianity as Old as Creation_. He was buried in Bunhill Fields. Caleb Fleming, D.D., born at Nottingham, 1698; pastor, 1753-1778, having been previously minister of a congregation in Bartholomew Close. Author of a multitude of pamphlets—some published anonymously—quaint and obscure in style. He held opinions verging on Socinianism, and "set down as fools all who held different opinions," including Watts, Bradbury, Pike, Wesley, Whitefield, and Sherlock. This congregation only occupied the chapel in the mornings, and at the expiration of the lease, in 1778, the church was dispersed. In the afternoons an Independent Church, commenced by Thomas Cole, who died in 1697, rented the chapel. He was followed by Dr. John Singleton, who in 1704 removed with the church to Lorimer's Hall.

In that year (1704) Dr. Isaac Watts preached here in the afternoons until 1708, when he removed to the new meeting house in Duke's Place.

Then followed, in 1708, a congregation under the oversight of James Maisters, who came hither from Joiners' Hall, who, with his successor Thomas Richardson, removed in 1723 to Devonshire Square. About 1741 Mr. Weatherley's congregation of General Baptists came here from Artillery Place, Spitalfields, and continued until the expiration of the lease, when they removed to Berry Street. A sect of Seventh Day Baptists also occupied the chapel on Saturdays, under the pastorate of Thomas Bampfield, "who died a martyr in Newgate in 1684." The church afterwards removed to Curriers' Hall.

In 1779 a lease was taken of the chapel by Anthony Cole, a seceder from the Countess of Huntingdon's connection, who gathered together a numerous congregation, who assembled here until the expiration of the lease in 1799, when they removed to Founders' Hall.

Shortly after this the building was taken down, and all traces of it are now obliterated.

But that which rendered Pinners' Hall so conspicuous and celebrated in the annals of Nonconformity was the establishment of the Merchants' Lecture within its walls. In 1672, the Dutch war commenced, and Charles II. and his advisers, thinking it desirable that there should be peace at home in the religious world whilst there was war abroad, issued the memorable Declaration of Indulgence, in the preamble to which it was stated, "that there was very little fruit of all those forcible methods which had been used for seducing erring and dissenting persons, etc. His Majesty therefore, by virtue of his supreme power in matters ecclesiastical, took upon him to suspend all penal laws about them, declaring that he would grant a convenient number of public meeting places to men of all sects that did not conform, provided they took out licences, etc." This was welcomed by the Dissenters generally as a gracious act of toleration, but there were those amongst them who looked upon it as a stepping-stone to the re-introduction of Popery. Taking advantage of the indulgence, the Presbyterians and Independents who agreed in the fundamental principles of the Reformation, and in a desire to tear away from the Anglican Church the shreds of Popery which still adhered to it, met together, under the patronage of the merchants of London, and agreed to establish in Pinners' Hall a weekly lecture, to be preached on Tuesday mornings.

At first four Presbyterian and two Independent ministers, the most eminent of their day, were appointed to preach in turn. They were Drs. Bates, Manton, and Owen, and Messrs. Baxter, Collins, and Jenkyn, and for a time the lectures were continued with success and acceptance, and with tolerable unanimity, despite some little bickering on the questions of Predestination and Reprobation, occasioned by a sermon preached by Baxter, who defended his sermon in a tract entitled _An Appeal to the Light_, when Dr. Manton came forward and partially suppressed the clamour, but Baxter seceded.

A succession of distinguished ministers continued the lecture until 1694, when the Calvinistic question again cropped up, arising out of the reprinting of the works of Dr. Tobias Crisp, which were published under the editorship of his son in 1690, and written against by Mr. Williams, one of the lecturers. Discord sprung up, and an attempt was made to exclude him from the lectureship, upon which four of the lecturers,—Dr. Bates, and Messrs. Williams, Howe, and Alsop,—sent in their resignations, and set up an opposition lecture at Salters' Hall, at the same day and hour.

At the expiration of the lease the lecture was removed to Little St. Helen's, and afterwards to the chapel in New Broad Street, about 1780, but was very thinly attended.

The Independent Chapel in New Broad Street, to which the Merchants' lecture migrated, was built in 1728, for Dr. Guyse and a congregation who separated with him from Miles Lane. Dr. Guyse was a learned man and Merchant lecturer at Pinners' Hall, and was author of _A Paraphrase on the New Testament_, 1739, a voluminous and valuable work, as well as of some other works.

He was followed by John Stafford, D.D., who died in 1800, and was buried in Bunhill-fields; author of _The Scripture Doctrine of Sin and Grace_, _Twenty-five Sermons on the Seventh Chapter Romans_, _etc._

A writer in Knight's _London_ says: "If a stranger from any part of England, Scotland, or Ireland, however remote, were to pause in the midst of Broad Street, and enquire to what purpose that large pile of buildings opposite to him were appropriated, he would, ten to one, on learning that it was the Excise Office, have a livelier idea of the operations of the Board of Revenue, which has its seat there, than the inhabitant of London, provided that neither had been brought into direct contact with its officers by the nature of his business." In 1626, King Charles I. attempted to introduce the excise, but a unanimous vote of the Houses of Parliament compelled him to renounce the scheme. Nevertheless, in 1643, Parliament itself levied an excise, for the maintenance of the forces raised by them; the first articles on which the duty was laid were ale, beer, cider, and perry. The Commissioners of Excise sat in Haberdashers' Hall. An account of its establishment was given by Prynne, in a tract published in 1654, entitled, "A Declaration and Protestation against the Illegal and Detestable and oft-contemned New Tax and Extortion of Excise in General, and for Hops, a native and uncertain commodity in particular." An excise office was built in Smithfield, which was burnt down by the populace, and many riots took place in London in opposition to the tax, especially when salt and meat and other of the common necessaries of life were subjected to it; and a multitude of pamphlets, some of a very scurrilous character, appeared in opposition to it. The Excise office was afterwards removed to the mansion of Sir J. Frederick, in Ironmonger Lane, and remained there until 1768, when the trustees of the Gresham estates let the ground on which Gresham College and Almshouses stood, extending from Bishopsgate Street to Broad Street, to Government for £500 per annum, the City and Mercers' Company further agreeing to pay out of the Gresham funds the sum of £1,800 towards the demolition of the college and the building of the Excise Office. The architect was the elder Dance, who erected a plain but spacious and commanding looking brick building, which served the purpose of the commissioners until 1848, when the office was removed to Somerset House.

That portion of the grounds of the Gresham estate which faced Broad Street, was occupied by the almshouses founded by Sir Thomas Gresham in 1575, and bequeathed by him in trust to the Lord Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London. They consisted of eight tenements for eight poor men, with an annual allowance of £6 13s. 4d. and a load of coals, and a new gown every two years. On their demolition to make room for the Excise Office, they were removed to the City green-yard, in Whitecross Street.

Another Government office which stood in Broad Street was the Pay Office for the Navy. It was situated in a portion of Winchester House at the north-west corner of Great Winchester Street, has since been removed, and is now located in Somerset House.

The South Sea House formerly extended from Threadneedle Street to Broad Street, with a frontage in both streets; now it is confined to the former street in a more modern building. The company was incorporated in 1710 by Queen Anne, for the purpose of paying off a sum of ten millions due to the seamen who had been engaged in the French wars. In 1720 they obtained an Act of Parliament giving them a monopoly of trading to the South Seas. By a series of iniquitous frauds and deceptions they raised the shares to a fictitious value of 1,000 per cent., and caused the nation to fall into a sort of financial madness in their eagerness to get shares, which resulted in the "South Sea Bubble." The panic on its bursting caused the ruin of innumerable families, whilst a few clever rogues realised large fortunes. The company has long ceased to be a trading body, and the remnant of the stock, converted into annuity stock, is managed by Government, under the provisions of an Act of Parliament passed in 1753.

The district northward of Old Broad Street was formerly called Petty France, on which New Broad Street has been built. Seymoor in his edition of Stow writes: "Petty France; the greatest part of this is new built, and called New Broad Street. It is a most regular building; the houses are after the manner of those by Hanover Square and Burlington Gardens, and are the most elegant buildings in the City."

In New Broad Street, besides the Independent Chapel, mentioned _supra_, a Presbyterian chapel was erected in 1729, for a congregation which removed hither from Hand Alley, Bishopsgate, where a Church had been formed early in the reign of Charles II. by Thomas Vincent, who rendered himself famous by his labours amongst the sick during the Plague. Dr. John Evans, a pious and eminent man, was minister of the Church at the time of the removal, and was author of a great number of published sermons, and other works, including "Two sermons preached at the opening of a new meeting place, in New Broad Street, Petty France, December 14th and 21st, 1730." John Allen, M.D., was a subsequent minister of the chapel, author of several sermons which were printed; and another was John Palmer, a controversial writer, and opponent of Dr. Priestley. At the expiration of the lease in 1780 the chapel was taken down and the church dispersed.

An illustration of the primitive mode of stopping the ravages of fire occurred in 1314, when permission was asked by the officials of Broad Street ward to cut down an elm tree standing by London Wall and sell it, to enable them to purchase a new cord for their "wardhoke," a hook which was kept in each ward of the City for the purpose of pulling down houses to prevent the spreading of fires.

In 1500 an inquisition was held to ascertain the liability of the ward to maintain two bridges over the Wall Brook running from "Vynesbury," now broken, and to replace the hinges of Bishopsgate, when it was found that the Prior of Holy Trinity was bound by his charter to keep one of the bridges in repair, and the Prior of the New Hospital without Bishopsgate and Broad Street ward the other jointly, and that it devolved on the Bishop of London to maintain the hinges of the gate, as he claimed a stick from every load of wood that passed through the gateway.

Broad Street of late years has become a thoroughfare of immense traffic, especially in the mornings and evenings, of cabs and pedestrians going from and to the half-dozen railways which have erected stations and termini in Liverpool Street, so much so as to render it at certain times of the day one of the most thronged streets of the City.

Chaucer and the Tabard.

The Tabard has passed away! Another of the relics of old London—a link between the picturesque past and the prosaic present—rich as it was in remembrances associated with the birthtime of English poetry, is now a thing of the past. We have but few of these relics of Bygone London remaining; it is true the Tower, St. John's Gate, and the house of Sir John Crosby still linger with us; but who knows how soon the site of the Tower will be wanted for a railway station, the gateway of the old knights be found to be an obstruction in the way of Pickford's vans, and the old Bishopsgate Street house swept away by the broom of "improvement?"

If there be one spot within the bounds of London that may be especially termed classic—which may be looked upon as sacred to poetry—that spot is Southwark, despite its hop warehouses, in the midst of which stood the Tabard. The legend of the ferryman's daughter and the foundation of the monastery and church of St. Mary Overies is redolent of romance. In Clink Street, Shakespeare lived and wrote, and in the theatre on Bankside he gave utterance to his inspired imaginings; in St. Saviour's Church sleeps Gower, the contemporary of Chaucer; and in one grave repose Fletcher and Massinger; whilst on Bankside, in twin fraternity, dwelt Beaumont and Fletcher.

More than to others should this spot and the Tabard be dear to the citizens of London, for he to whose shrine pilgrims of the hostelry were wending their way was the son of a London merchant; and he who describes, and has rendered immortal, that riding to Canterbury, in April of the year of grace, 1383, was born within the walls of the City.

The Tabard owed its origin to the Abbey of Newere Mynstre, Winchester, which was founded by King Alfred, and afterwards removed outside the walls, when it assumed the name of Hyde Abbey, _temp._ Henry I. Alwyn, the eighth abbot, was uncle to King Harold, and fought, with twelve of his monks, under his standard at Hastings. In process of time the Abbey waxed rich, and in 1307 the Abbot purchased a plot of land near the palace of the Bishop of Winchester, and thereon, as Stow informs us, "built a faire house for him and his train when he came to the City to Parliament." At this spot was a convergence of roads from the southern and western counties, from whence started eastward "The Pilgrim's Road" to Canterbury, in consequence of which the Abbot built, in close contiguity, a hostelry for the reception of pilgrims, where they might repose until a sufficient number was gathered together to proceed in company for protection from the dangers of the road. It was built in the picturesque style of the period, with gables to the street, cross timberings and latticed windows; in the interior was a large courtyard, with balustraded galleries running round it, leading to dormitories; and there was a "Pilgrims' Hall," a large room some 45 feet in length, with open fireplaces and long tables, at which the pilgrims dined and supped during their sojourn. At the dissolution, 1538, it was sold, along with the Abbot's House, and is described as "The Tabard of the Monastery of Hyde, and the Abbot's place, with the stables and gardens belonging thereunto." Still, however, it retained its character of an inn, and in the reign of Elizabeth was repaired and partially rebuilt by "Master J. Preston." A view of it, as it then appeared, is given in Urry's edition of Chaucer, 1721, representing it in the old timbered and gabled style, with a beam stretching across the road, from which the swinging and creaking sign was pendant, and on which was an inscription,—"This is the Inn where Sir Jeffry Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty pilgrims lay on their journey to Canterbury, anno 1383." In 1673, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament, this cross beam, with its supporting posts, was taken down, but the inscription, after the rebuilding, was painted over the gateway, where it remained until 1813, when it was erased.

The street front of the inn was consumed in the great fire of Southwark, 1676, along with 600 other houses, but was immediately rebuilt, presumably in facsimile of the original, with its courtyard, galleries, pilgrims' hall, and quaint old sleeping-rooms, and it is possible that some parts which escaped the fire may have been a portion of the Tabard, where Chaucer sat as "a chiel takin' notes," and where the pretty prioress, the wife of Bath, the knight and the squire, and the Sumpnour and the Pardoner chatted and laughed and flirted; certainly the courtyard was the identical spot where the merry party mounted their nags and palfreys, to ride forth along the "Pilgrims' Road" to St. Thomas's shrine. The pilgrims' room was divided into three apartments; on its walls was formerly a fragment of tapestry, representing a procession of pilgrims, which afterwards disappeared. After the fire, says Aubrey, "the ignorant landlord or tenant, instead of the ancient sign, put up the Talbot or Dog." Truly he must have been ignorant or destitute of veneration for antiquity or poetical feeling, to commit such an act of vandalism, and his successors cannot have been much better not to have restored the old time-honoured designation.

For all time will the name of Harry Bailly, the jovial landlord of the Tabard towards the end of the fourteenth and beginning of the fifteenth centuries, be remembered. He was a notable burgess of Southwark, and evidently a popular character; he is supposed to be identical with Henry Tite Morton, who, in 1380, was assessed, with his wife Christiana, at 2s. to a subsidy, rented the customs of the borough in fee farm at £10 per annum; was bailiff to Southwark, whence his appellation, Henry le Bailly; represented the borough in the Parliament of Westminster, 50 Edward III., and in that of Gloucester 2 Richard II. A jolly fellow he seems to have been, well adapted for his profession:—

"A seemly man our hoste was withall
For to have been a Marshal in a Hall;
A large man he was, with eyen steep,
A fairer burgess is there none in Chepe:
Bold of his speech and wise and well ytaught,
And of manhood, him lacked righte naught;
Eke thereto was he right a merry man
And spake of mirth amonges ot'thing
When than we hadden made our reckonings."

It was in the merry spring time of the year 1383, as the inscription on the sign informs us—

"Whenne that April with his showres sote
The drought of March, hath pierced to the rote,
And bathed every vein in such licour
Of which virtue engendered is the flower,"

a time of the year when

"Longer folk to go on pilgrimage,
And specially from every shire's end
Of Englande, to Canterbury they wend,
The holy, blissful martyr for to seek,
That them hath holpen, when that they were sick,"

that Chaucer and his company met at the Tabard.

St. Thomas of Canterbury was murdered in the year 1170, by four knights, instigated thereto by a passionate exclamation of King Henry II., who was at feud with him relative to the respective rights of Monarchy and the church, and his shrine during the intervening years had become one of the most popular in the kingdom; the Saxon people, down-trodden by their Norman lords, looking upon him as a sort of clerical Robin Hood, the defender of the rights of the poor against Regal and Baronial oppression, and in process of time it had become resplendant with precious metals and gems, the offerings of pious devotees. Says Chaucer—

"Befell that in that season, on a day,
In Southwark, at the Tabard, as I lay,
Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage
To Canterbury, with devout courage,
At night was come unto that hostelry;
With nine and twenty in a company,
Of sundry folk by aventure yfall
In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all,
That toward Canterbury wouldeh ride.
The stables and the chambers weren wide
And well we weren eased atte best" (well accommodated).

He then gives a series of photographs of the pilgrims, representatives of various classes of the people of England at a most eventful period of our history—a period when Wycliffe was laying the foundations of the Protestant Church; when Wat Tyler and his fellow serfs were rising in assertion of their liberties; when Chaucer and Gower were fashioning the English language into shape, as contradistinguished from the Norman-French of the Court; when the feeble Richard occupied the throne, to be shortly driven hence by his cousin Bolingbroke, which eventually led to the Wars of the Roses, and resulted in the extinction of a vast number of the Norman families, rendering it easier for the Saxon element of the kingdom afterwards to gain the ascendancy.

Amongst the company are a knight, a worthy man, who had done deeds of prowess in all parts of the world, yet was meek as a maid, who was dressed in a "fustian gipon, alle besmattered" with marks of travel; along with him was his son, "a younge squire, a lover and lusty bachelor," with "lockes curl'd, as they were laid in press;" also his attendant, a yeoman "clad in green," and under his belt "a sheaf of peacock arrows bright and keen."

There was also a prioress

"That of her smiling was full simple and coy;
Whose greatest oath n'as of Saint Eloy,"

who sung the service "entuned in her nose full sweetly, and French she spoke full fair and fetisly, after the school of Stratford-atte-Bow."

"A monk there was, an outsider, that loved venery;
Of pricking and of hunting for the hare,
Was all his lust for no cost would he spare."

"A friar there was, a wanton and merry Limitour (a licensed beggar), a full solemne man, who

Was an easy man to give penance

There as he wist (to those he knew) to have a good pittance." Who

"Knew well the taverns in every town,
And every hosleter and gay tapstere,
Better than a lazar or a beggere."

A merchant with a forked beard, "a Flandrish beaver hat, and bootes clasped fair and fetisly."

A threadbare clerk of Oxenford, on a horse as "lean as a rake," who would rather have twenty bookes of Aristotle and his philosophy,

"Then robès rich, fiddle, or psaltry."

A sergeant-at-law, "wary and wise, that often had been at the Porvis" (the portico of St. Paul's, where lawyers met for consultation).

A Frankelin, with white beard and sanguine complexion, and a silken "Gipciere" (purse) hanging from his girdle; a pompous sort of man, fond of good living, in whose house "snowed meat and drink, who was an important man in his county, lord and sire at sessions, high sheriff, and full often knight of the shire."

A haberdasher, a carpenter, a webbe (weaver), a dyer, and a tapiser; citizens with pouches full of silver; "yclothed in one livery of a solemn and great fraternity."

"Well seemed each of them a fair burgess,
To sitte in a Guildhall, on the dais,"

and all fitted by wisdom to be aldermen.

With them had they a cook, "to boil the chickens and the marrow bones," who, perhaps in consequence of the hot nature of his vocation, had a wondrous _penchant_ for "draughts of London ale."

A shipman, "who rode upon a rouncy (hack) as best he could," somewhat after the style of modern mariners.

A doctor of physic, "well grounded in astronomy," who

"Kept his patient a full great deal
In houres by his magic natural."

A wife of Bath, who had had five husbands and was ready for a sixth; a buxom dame, dressed in scarlet hosen and hat as broad as a buckler, who smirked and smiled upon the squire, much as the widow Wadman did, in an after age, upon Uncle Toby.

A poore parson, "rich of holy thought and work," a learned man and clerk "that Christe's Gospel woulde preach living at home in his parish instead of running up to London," unto St. Paul's, to seek for a chantry for souls.

"For Christe's love and his Apostles twelve,
He taught, but first he followed it himselve."

With whom was his brother, a ploughman, "that had of dung laid many of fother: a true swinker, who would thresh and dike and delve for Christ's sake, for every poore wight, withouten hire, if it lay in his might."

A miller, "a stout carle for the nones, full big of brawn and eke of bones, with beard red as any sow or fox, a wart on the cop of his nose, whence sprouted a crop of heres, red as the bristles of a sowe's ears; a jangler and goliardeis (reveller), who could well stealen corn and tollen thrice," and moreover "a baggepipe well could he blow and soun, and there withal he brought us out of town."

A Manciple, or purchaser of victuals for Inns of Court.

A Reeve, or land steward, a slender, choleric man, closely shaven and shorn, with calfless legs, who "ever rode hinderest of the rout."

A Sumpnour, or appositor of an Ecclesiastical court, "with a fine red cherubinne's face and a visage with knobs on his cheeks, of which children were afraid; a great drinker and garlic eater, and likerous (lecherous) as a sparrow."

His friend, a Pardoner, fresh from Rome, with a wallet "bretful of pardons and relics," making more money of them in a day than the parson of the parish in "moneths tway."

When this motley company had settled their reckoning with Harry Bailly, their host, he offered to be their guide to Canterbury, and as this was not the time when pilgrims hobbled along with peas in their shoes, he suggested that, to beguile the tedium of the way, they should each tell a tale, one going and another returning, and that he who told the best, should, on their return to the Tabard, be entertained at supper at the cost of the rest, which proposition was carried by acclamation; and the following morning the merry party mounted their nags in the court-yard and set forth, headed by the landlord, beside whom rode the miller, playing lustily on his bag-pipes until they got clear of the town, when the tale-telling commenced.

It may be supposed that they arrived safely at Canterbury, knelt at the shrine of the martyr, purchased their brooches, in evidence of their having been there, and caroused again on their return in the Pilgrims' Hall; but Chaucer leaves them on the road, prevented, perhaps, by troubles or death from giving the tales of the backward journey.

As the pilgrimages are coming into fashion, it may be that fresh gatherings may take place in Southwark; but it will not be at the Tabard, under the guidance of Harry Bailly, but at the London Bridge terminus, under the leadership of Cook, the excursionist; and it is to be feared that, instead of a Chaucer to depict the humours of the journey, their proceedings will be narrated by a newspaper correspondent.

The Priory of the Holy Trinity, Aldgate.